Atlas Shrugged
by delusionalimperialist
Summary: Bella's betrayal with Jacob is the final straw to make Edward stumble. Now she has to find the strength to put him back together and face the consequences of her actions. Begins after the kiss in the woods with Jacob. Eclipse AU. E/B
1. Titan

A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyers and Atlas Shrugged's title is the property of Ayn Rand.

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~*~

It was inevitable that he would know.

He would have heard two hearts beating deliriously; two lungs grasping for breathe.; two burning bodies in the frozen forest. One mind would have been glorifying in victory, in ecstasy; broadcasting, "Finally," for the one he knew was listening.

Yet for all this knowledge, he would only hear silence in the one that mattered. He wouldn't know that when I asked the boy to kiss me, that I didn't really want it. He couldn't know my desperation to save the wolf from his pain and rashness. He didn't know that when I pulled back from his violent response that I had given up. I had already gone above and beyond to prevent his death; he couldn't possible demand more of me.

Little did I know that of course Jacob did, he would have all of me, which was the one thing I would always refuse him.

Standing outside that feeble tent, on this day of requiem for vampire and wolf alike, all he read in Jacob's mind, all he smelled on the air, all he heard… was my final response.

My struggle meant nothing, because I succumbed to temptation. I wonder if he could hear the pedestal he had placed me on shattering into thousands of pieces. If Alice could see three hearts being shredded as surely as the newborn army below.

Pondering his omniscience meant nothing, when I knew that for all of his abilities he would never know my thoughts or motives. He would assume I loved Jake as I loved him. He would bear all fault and responsibility for leaving me and try to take this on himself, saying he paved the way for another man. It wouldn't matter that as the scalding skin pulled me closer, manhandled me, pushed and hurt me, attacked my mouth and went back for more; my body too was saying, "Finally." My insecurities and vulnerabilities were eschewed as they were presented with evidence of my desirability. As I felt that I was finally a woman and not a china doll. Edward would only ever see it as my revelry in his enemy and my best friend.

My new confidence brought only more fear: terror of the consequences of my actions and dread for the battles, both emotional and physically that lay ahead. On this day, when everyone I held dear fought for their lives in order to protect mine, I betrayed my soul for the whims of my body.

Even filled with desperation, my body still quivered with the echo of Jacob's touch. Only my mind, far more understanding of my true desires, cooled the burning touch; narrowed the build; hardened the lips and sweetened the breath. Long and black became bronze and unruly; terracotta became diamonds; friend became lover, shifter became marble.

My mind struggled to comprehend all the contrasting emotions swirling in me. The desire to continue with Edward what was started with Jacob; the gut wrenching guilt of my betrayal; my fear of Edward's response all bounced around competing for my attention as I walked back.

Deftly stepping over fallen branches and uprooted trees, I pushed the doubt aside with the assurance that despite my foibles, Edward was above them. It was absurd, as he would say, that while my axis shifted, to think that his world would have even rumbled. My fear for his reaction was only juxtaposing my emotions and reactions upon him. I might be his weakness, but that did not make him weak.

He would have read my intentions and motives through the fog of Jacob's lust as clearly as the blush on my cheeks. Despite all he couldn't know, he was Edward. He was my Greek God, all knowing and powerful, and not even the feeble confusions of a hormonal teenage girl would hinder that. He knew me to be merely human, knew that we were fallible and we fail; that we give in to temptation. It may not affect him, but his empathy would give him the grace to put me back together. To forgive me my imperfections and someday soon, change me so we would be equal in all things.

Emerging into the snowy clearing of our camp, I calmed my wildly guilty heart and steadied my frantic breathing, knowing I must not appear to be harmed. If there was one flaw of my vampire, it was his unilateral devotion to my safety. I did not risk my relationship with Edward to save Jacob's life only for him to lose it again. Allowing my guilt to come forward and preparing to apologize, I moved towards the tent and hopefully my Edward.

The snow crunched beneath my boots, insuring that he knew of my approach, but neither Seth nor Edward made a move towards me. The only sign of recognition of me was an eerily disapproving growl from the young wolf at the door. Who it was directed at, I couldn't fathom, but it was abundantly clear he already knew what had happened. As apparently did the rest of the pack.

Bracing myself to grovel, I opened the tent still surprised he had not grabbed me the moment I left the woods, and slid through the hole. I allowed my eyes to adjust from the gleaming snow to the glistening vampire in the darkened tent. As my eyes fell on him, the inevitable traitorous tears began, my confidence dwindled, and my guilt drowned me. I only wish this was the worst of it, but one look at Edward's face forewarned me my own foolishness would be the least of which to weigh down my conscience.

Prone against the cloth walls, legs strewn before him, was an Edward I had never seen,or imagined. There was no look of desperation or deprecation upon his face. No angered gleam to his eyes or painful grimace upon his mouth. He did not mirror his anguished remorse he exhibited when we returned from Volterra. Even his impassive ambiguity days after my birthday would be preferable to this Edward. This blank and empty vampire.

Even at our worst together, I could recall a gleam to his eyes that I was too blinded by my insecurities at the time to recognize. The look that silently begged me to understand he hurt and to please forgive him for what he was about to do. He may have been an expert liar, but everyone has a tell, and Edward's was always that lone glint mirroring his soul. I yearned for that hint of emotion. Even if it said, "I hate you," at least I would have something to distinguish him from a statue.

Now though, he was sprawled in the tent, not moving or breathing, neither acknowledging nor ignoring me; and still heartbreakingly beautiful. There was nothing to show him as anything but an expertly crafted piece of marble. How such a vibrant and soulful man could ever look empty did not escape my notice. My actions were Medusa's gaze and the result was this statue before me.

My tears and pleas, my cries and grasping yielded nothing. I flung myself on him, grabbing his shoulders, blazing tear and snot stained kisses over his lifeless body, dragging myself as close as possible, pulling his hair, and shouting in his ear.

All for naught.

I shoved my jugular under his nose to tempt him with my potent smell.

No response.

Frantically searching for anything to rouse him, I thought of the third wife who sacrificed for her people. I was already the stupid lamb, perhaps now I could be of use. I would be and do anything to reverse my Medusa spell, and return Edward to the life he had slipped away from.

I sought a sharp object to use to cut myself. He may have been able to ignore my attempts to rouse him, but he would not be able to deny his base instincts to feed and devour. I would give my life to return him to his. Finally I could be what he needed.

Finding only a rock I carved into my skin, positive that Edward would stop me at any moment. He never noticed, just as I was unaware of the pain as it dug into my flesh. If anything I rejoiced in it, some physical manifestation of what I put him through.

I suppose he was right after all, I never did have any notion of self-preservation. Logically, somewhere inside me I knew I should be scared of dying. But as I lifted my bleeding wrist to his lips, no thoughts of this sacrifice being too big, too much, too rash, or of how this would effect him crossed my mind.

Perhaps I should have realized it was of no avail when I wasn't dead as soon as my blood hit the air. I certainly should have known when the blood was coating his lips and he remained impassive. Maybe I should have remembered Edward's control; his iron will to see no harm come to me. Instead I selfishly prayed that he would show some sign that he was aware of me as something other than background. That with the temptation of my blood, he would prove that despite the cruelty of my actions, he still desired me on some level.

Lost inside this microcosm Edward and I existed in, I was as unresponsive to the outside world as he was to me. I was barely cognizant of all the fluids pouring from my body, nonetheless the wolf cries, the sickly sweet smell of burning of bodies, or Seth's panicked howl from outside the tent.

No, my world had disintegrated. I had thought that I once knew what that meant. Surely the void I existed in when he had left was the worst pain anyone could go through and survive. I was wrong though, as I so often seem to be. I suppose it could still be worse if he died. Now I think I finally have the perspective to know that if he were to leave this world, so to would I, with no needed help from my own hand. For now though, I still had Edward. Perhaps that was a technicality since he seemed to be nothing but an empty stone shell; sentenced to an eternity, as the still-life statue. So I would exist in this state, past the point of pain I thought I could survive, yet still so far from the peaceful slumber of non-existence. I always said I would do anything to be with him, even if it meant enduring this.

My endurance was to be short lived. I was sitting, smashed, and tangled in Edward. My tears were saturating his shirt, sliding unnoticed down his still chest; mixing with the snot pouring unstopped out of my nose and sullying the crimson drops falling un-tasted from his lips. All my fluids, representing everything that I am was around him; until suddenly they were not.

Before my wrist could fall from his mouth, the tent had disappeared. Where there had been darkness surrounding us, there was an empty gray sky. From where I had been dumped on the ground, I could see the tattered remains of our shelter, and a decided lack of my catatonic vampire.

Euphoria rose inside me. He moved. He may have fled from me, but he existed. He had come back to himself. With him, so too lived hope.

Oh how I was wrong. Would I ever be able to trust my instincts? Was everything I believed to be the right course of action always destined to be the polar opposite? Like opening a vein upwind of a vampire fight, which contained beings lost in their bloodlust. In my willingness to bleed to save Edward, all I did was jeopardize him. Whether I bled, lived, died, or sacrificed myself, Edward was put in the path of my destruction.

Cognizance returned, and with it the flame haired vampire of my nightmares… and her sidekick. Inevitably since I was the bloody human, I would be the first to go. They may have wanted to play with me, but my recklessness prevented that. The only question was if Edward could escape for help while they dealt with me. Selfishly I forgot about Seth. I suppose his death would be another rock on the scale measuring my soul, though it was nothing compared to the that would represent Edward's.

It seemed ridiculous to run or try and prevent their attack, so I stood still, with my bleeding arm outstretched. Let it tempt them. Let them come for me. Let this end.

My actions of course both did and did not have the effect I desired. Victoria and her pet fiend, leapt at me, but never connected. Edward, who had been standing there, not even looking at me, responded more like Alice than himself. At the exact moment before they would have hit me, he merely stepped into their path. They responded in kind, growling and hissing as their collision begot the beginning of a rockslide.

I was out of the way, standing frozen before these clashing titans mere feet in front of me. Seth, well I had my wish that he was out of way of the vampires, though I hadn't meant for him to be crushed under a boulder in the process. With detached emotions, I saw him prone and whimpering below a rock so large even a werewolf couldn't move it. And so I stood and watched someone else I cared for be hurt.

Nothing, not even the life seeping out of a barely pubescent boy nearby, could have prepared me for seeing Edward under attack. I had passed out from pain when he fought James, and had been horrified when Jane tortured him. Both of those times he had a plan of action, and while pain had been inflicted upon him, he gave back far more than he was dealt.

Not now though. This being that I had always envisioned a god or one of God's archangels, fought recklessly with no thought or plan, nor any sense of survival. They tore into his skin, scratched and bit at him, and he never moved away. He knew that it was coming, even I with my human vision could see their deliberate movements, and yet he never dodged or flinched. Systematically he attacked at them, purely offensively.

Watching this horrorshow before me, my brain finally pushed past everything I let blind me, and saw the situation for what it was. I saw through a clear filter for the first time and I knew I could trust it, because I saw through Edward. As he completed his suicide mission, I saw his perception of my actions. When I ran away in Phoenix to save my mother without him, when I rode motorcycles and jumped off cliffs…or when I befriended a werewolf all ran through my mind. My boundary pushing for him to fulfill my needs, for him to change me, for him to relax and let me be pursued by a reckless and manipulative young wolf followed shortly thereafter.

At every turn, at every moment, Edward watched my insecurities and stubbornness take me one step closer to death. He saw me never trusting him, never recognizing that all he had ever wanted was my safety and well-being. Even now, after I had made him compromise his values, ignore his fears, and beg for my hand in marriage; after I had betrayed him with his biggest fear and natural enemy; he stood in front of me, risking his life to save mine.

He had told me, what seems so long ago now, that I was his life. He went to Volterra because he could not be in a world that did not include me. Still I doubted his sincerity. I let my insecurities dictate my actions. I stubbornly refused everything he had ever tried to do for me. I ironically rejected his love time and again and simultaneously took it for granted. His unresponsiveness in the tent was merely the manifestation of how I had always treated him. I had assumed because I thought of him as a god that he was above the trivialities of mortality. The paltry emotions of jealousy, arousal, wrath…insecurity and vulnerabilities, I perceived to be below him.

Apparently I had forgotten my mythology in my adoration of Edward. The gods were never the ethereal creatures that deigned to grant humanity their grace. They were vengeful and petty, arrogant and arousing; they personified the human emotions to the extreme degree. I had never stopped to think that Edward felt more than I did. That not only did he see in minds, hear from afar, traverse impossible distances, and crush mountains into sand; the same applied to his emotions. Everything in Edward was heightened; from the dichotomy of his perfection and fallibilities, to the battle between the man inside with his inner beast. His impeccable control that so frustrated me was yet another layer of protection for me; another way he wrapped me in his unconditional love.

He once said that vampires do not easily experience change, and once it occurs it was impossible for them to return to how they were before. I can see now that I was the great change in his life. He argues that it conquered the beast and brought out the man. On this occasion, he was wrong. I reverted him. I changed him from a god to a Titan, and I punished him for it. Today, not in 1918, but on this fateful day, Edward had been turned to stone, and yet he continued to bear the weight of the heavens on his shoulders.

Adonis became Atlas, holding up the burden of his shooting star. I never noticed before how he had progressively carried more and more weight. My humanity and his immortality; the call of my blood and his unending thirst; my insecurities and stubbornness; his desperation to keep me safe; my precipitous abandon towards all things dangerous; his sacrifice of his own feelings to protect me; the guilt of his abandonment; the consequences of my relationship with Jacob…every little thing further weighed him down. Today was just the day he finally succumbed to the burden.

God, Jacob. In this moment, as my Atlas buckled, and yet still shouldered his burdens, I found myself caring even less about Jacob than I did about Seth's injury. I couldn't bring myself to feel the onus of my responsibility toward others at the moment. Paradigms were shifting and Edward, who never failed to endure, was falling.

Venom was leaking from bites all over his formerly untarnished skin, his arm was barely connected, and he was limping. Yet the newborn was in pieces, and Victoria was crazed with what had been the impossibility of her impending failure. She and Edward blurred together, moving too fast for vision, though I could still hear her hissing and growling. Edward never made a noise. He steadfastly refused to dodge away from her teeth and determinedly kept nipping at her neck.

He had no anger or will to cause her pain; he was too far gone for that. He merely systematically sought her end, and took whatever damage she dealt to him without a wince. He would keep the heavens from crashing to the ground while he lived, but if in the process he was destroyed, it mattered not to him.

Ever responsible, ever loving, ever sacrificing, he would do and mean what Jacob did not. I saw it clearly; when he left me, as Atlas did to Hercules, he made Jacob hold me up. Then he returned, and retook the burden- willing and lovingly, but not before the damage was done.

As Edward fell to the ground, with his teeth at Victoria's neck and hers at his, I saw a Titan, a god, vampire, a man, my love: broken before me. Victoria may have dragged him down, but I shattered him. And he let me. I ate from the apple, and as Eve before me, I was granted the gift of knowledge; but in this impossible story, I ate, and my Atlas shrugged.

Victoria and Edward came into focus, as the clearing quieted all but for my repetitive pleas of, "please;" to Edward, to God, to whomever could save this man before me. Someone somewhere listened.

He rose from the ground, ever so slowly, as the silvery fluid leaked from his neck, holding her head at his side. I sank to my knees and stared at the sky, shocked to see the sun was still in the same position it had been. My blood had clotted and my snot had dried, but my tears kept endlessly falling. I guess time was irrelevant when the world shifts.

Yelling Edward's name was futile, but I did anyway. He was too busy methodically collecting body parts and piling them up. In that section of my brain where all things morbidly curious and inappropriate lay, I contemplated how he could tell his bits from theirs. But when he picked up a slab of flesh and shoved it into his pocket, I deduced that he had some way of discerning them. From the same pocket he pulled out a lighter and lit them on fire. For all his snark about wolves, he certainly had a dogged determination to see his task through. Not his own vampire bleeding, Seth's whimpering, or my patheticness could distract him.

The putrid purple smoke rapidly rose above the treetops and shortly thereafter the cavalry arrived, a day late and a dollar short. Something you didn't tend to suspect with omniscient vampires. Looks of shock and horror were another. Emmett threw the boulder off of Seth and alerted the wolves to his injury. Alice and Esme, pulled me into their arms and held me close, rocking back and forth and trying to calm me. I felt Jasper's effort, but sometimes your body and your emotions refused to be anything but your own. My guilt and liability at the agony of my actions could not be eased by any vampire but the one limping away.

Carlisle and Rosalie, in two different manners urged him to stop; Carlisle reaching out in support, Rosalie snarling at him to quit being melodramatic.

Apparently she had yet to be informed that I had done this, or I would be on that pyre as well.

Edward kept walking away, his mission had been completed and now he could shatter. I don't know if he tried to nobly sacrifice himself to pave the way for Jacob. He had always been ever willing to bear the burden of others. It would perhaps be easier if those were his intentions; if he wasn't so hurt to the point that he couldn't care if he existed. I could fix extreme reactions, but I don't know if all the crazy glue in the world could piece him back together now.

Nonetheless I would try. But I couldn't if my prior worst fears were to come true first. My begging of him to come back was ignored, but my whispered broken question connected.

"Will you leave again?"

And then the empty stone god, the unbreakable vampire, stumbled and fell. And no one was there to catch him. Alice gasped. Esme panicked. Rosalie glared at me. Carlisle reached for him, but was denied. They were beginning to see the picture clearer, that something far worse than bloodshed and death marred their brother and son.

Alice and Esme released me as I squirmed to free myself and run to him. I would pick him up as he always had me. But his slight shake of the head stopped me inches behind him. Those bone shattering muscles tightened and shrugged. His head dropped, and his lungs gasped for air. At last, in a tenuous voice, as if he hadn't used it in ages, he stuttered,

"I. Promised."

With that he was gone.

No longer Titan and god or vampire.

A broken burning man, injured inside and out, staggered out of my sight.

That final glimpse told me I never needed to become a vampire to make us equals. I had achieved that today. He bled and fell, he felt pain and agony and suffered from my same insecurities. He needed reassurance and someone to brush back his hair and tell him they would make everything ok. Without a partner he was an overburdened man sinking under the weight of the world.

It took this most acute betrayal for me to know Edward Cullen.

He put aside his hopes and wants and inner desires and loved unconditionally. He sacrificed himself time and again for me, whether rightly or wrongly, and loved me even when I threw it back at him. He loved me enough to leave me. He loved me more to come back. He loved me enough to ignore his seething jealousy and let me see a temperamental wolf that he knew to have ulterior motives. He loved me too much to call me on my never-ending ration of crap I dished out. He let me reject him and pull him closer and make ridiculous demands. Even at his lowest and my worst, he resisted his bloodlust, and saved my life again. After all that I still doubted his promises, and he still kept them. I imagined as he made his way back to the house, he was awaiting my arrival to send him away and to explain that I wanted Jacob instead. But he would stay and endure until that time; ever loyal; ever loving.

Yes. I knew Edward now.

And I knew myself.

I was Bella Swan, the god killer.

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~*~

For those of you who aren't dorks like me who took way too much Latin, I'll provide a few footnotes on the mythology referenced.

Medusa: A Gorgon who was once a beautiful maiden sought by countless men. She was punished by turning her hair into snakes and having her gaze turn any who met it to stone.

Atlas: There are a few different accounts of this tale. Virgil declares him to be a Titan, who sided with other Titans in the war against the gods. At their defeat, Zeus sentenced Atlas to the farthest corner of the world to hold up the celestial orb.

Ovid, however, tells a different tale that relates back to Medusa. Perseus, in his travels after his defeat of the Gorgon, tried to enter into the realm of the Heripades, the giant Atlas' daughters. He has walled off their golden apple orchards and protected them with a dragon. Atlas then tries to prevent Perseus from crossing into it, and the upstart pulls out Medusa's head and turns Atlas into mountains that were so vast they held up the sky.

Hercules also relates to Atlas. The great hero we all know, in a moment of rage, went nuts and killed his family. He fled to the Oracles to seek retribution and they told him to enslave himself to a cruel king. The king then set twelve impossible tasks, one of which was to retrieve the golden apples of Heripades. Hercules used his noggin for once on this one, and chatted up Atlas who struck a bargain with him. If Hercules would just hold onto the heavens for a while, Atlas would get the apples from his daughters.

No, the apples do not necessarily have a relation to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, but it's Twilight, and how could you not play with temptation symbols?

Sorry this is so long, but I felt footnotes were necessary.

I know it's interesting to be thrown into the climax of a story, but I hope you keep reading and see how these two come out of this situation. Please review and let me know what you thought!


	2. Turn

Disclaimer: not mine.

Also much love to my sister, for reading through this and putting up with my perfectionist tendencies and freak-outs over my very first foray into creative writing.

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~*~

Even the Antichrist had to go home for dinner some time, I thought wryly as the Mercedes sped towards Charlie's house. The quiet-as-a-mausoleum vampire driving next to me prudently avoided eye contact, electing to hide the condemnation or consolation in her eyes. You never knew if Esme's maternal devotion would show itself through her care taking or her fierce protectiveness. Fortunately she knew I was in no shape to accept either; and it was readily apparent she was too torn between her responsibility and her need to be with her injured son waiting at home. The Cullens, neither cold nor accusing, had closed ranks. Whether it was for my safety or Edward's well being I couldn't fathom, but it was decided I needed to go home. Words like, "heal Edward," "need blood," "your father," "expecting," "it would be best for all," were thrown around like empty platitudes to hide their need for me to not be there.

I had listened half heartedly, but focused on the individuals around me. Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, and their world had been shaken as deeply as mine today. My sins and Edward's torment rippled outwards towards his family. Our disastrous microcosm stretched into the macro as I saw the effects on their faces.

Carlisle stared into the trees Edward had disappeared into; a burning need breaking through his compassion as he turned to me: "I. I.. He's my son...I'm sorry." And he disappeared after him.

Emmett gazed dazedly at the scene before him, not seeing any of us. He looked like a computer program that had been fed bad code. Nowhere in Emmett's systematic vampire brain was there a scenario in which Edward's ironclad will was broken. Even the great Achilles had a weakness and Emmett's floundering family wounded him a surely as that arrow.

Alice kept blinking, as if she could clear her flawless sight to see something better. I could only hazard a guess that she was seeking comfort in the future, hoping that it would paint a less dreary picture. By her frustrated growling it would appear that the Oracle was being unresponsive. God I hoped it wasn't because of the wolves.

Rosalie had been set apart from the others. I expected her to be tearing me limb from limb or spitting vitriol at me by now. Yet she looked strangely accepting. Maybe our pain made hers lessen. Or perhaps she liked to watch me suffer. I often wondered if Emmett got dizzy watching her polemical mood swings.

I couldn't bring myself to look at Jasper. His face would read every one of Edward's shrouded emotions, especially the depth of my betrayal. He already knew me to be a coward, but I masked it to the others as thoughtfulness.

"Go Jasper. It will only get worse."

Alice nodded in agreement and further encouraged him.

"It will debilitate you. His wounds alone will bring back your more...delicate memories."

He knew we were right, but his lingering pride refused to yield

"I know you worry Alice, but I never left my wounded men. Would you have me start with my brother?"

I sighed, the world and vampire feelings suddenly too much with me.

"Jasper. He's not a wounded soldier. He's a broken man who won't want his brother privy to and crippled by his weakness. I took everything else from him, at least leave him his dignity."

For a moment I had thought I felt his respect trickling against me, but my own condescension was too thick to accept it. As it departed, so did Jasper, heeding his brother's wishes.

With my one accomplishment, I tuned out the world. I had already proven my frailty today, and it was rapidly falling down around my ears. It wasn't that I was tired or overwhelmed, though both were true. It was more the eternal weariness Edward used to describe immortality. I desired for the sweet surrender of sleep, but while my heart still beat, I had been changed. I felt that I would never sleep again, for there were miles to go before I could rest. The burden of guilt was consuming me, but I felt that I could carry it. I swallowed it whole and made it a part of myself. I let it weaken me before, and it destroyed Edward.

Surrounding me were the burning ashes of the newborns. Today had signaled death and destruction, but from it I would see that something better would come from it. Tested and burned by the fire consuming me, I would rise from it, strengthened and reborn; neither vampire nor fragile child, but Edward's mate.

Fortifying my resolve, I allowed them to carry me down the mountain and take me home. Only hours ago I would have screamed and fought to be taken to Edward, to ease my fears and calm me. I would have leaned on him when gravity was bringing him down. Now I understood that while I wanted only to fix him, I couldn't right his arm or heal his wounds. Even my presence would distract Carlisle from the task. So home I went, not in defeat, but tactical retreat.

Esme pulled into the driveway behind Charlie's cruiser, having never spoken a word. Turning to look at her I requested she call me when he had been treated. Faltering only for a moment, she wearily asked,

"Do you plan to return to the house afterwards?"

I vehemently nodded.

"The moment his strength returns. I won't bother him until then, but I can't and won't let this linger."

She seemed to grapple with her words, and upon finding them she finally faced me.

"Alright."

And acceptance softened her mouth.

~*~

I stumbled into the house, never stopping to contemplate what I looked like. When the most beautiful creature in the world has been marred, it's hard to then question your own vanity. Charlie did though, and found it decidedly lacking.

"What the hell happened to you? You're wet, dirty, your face looks like you went into anaphylactic shock, and your damn arm is bleeding! What the hell kind of mall have you been in!?"

Oh. So that was the cover story. I think this moment was the first time I had ever wished with my whole being that I had been shopping. I would take rampant consumerism and couture fashion any day, over this afternoon.

C'est la vie. And cover stories.

"I wasn't at a mall Dad. I was with Edward. All weekend."

I knew the lie would have been kinder. It would have stopped his mustache from scrunching into his sinuses. The vein in his forehead wouldn't be pulsating with the rhythm he was going to use to beat Edward. His face might not have turned the same shade of "ladies-who- lunch-lavender" as Alice's toenails.

But the ripples in the pond had already started multiplying and nothing would cease them now. My relationships with everyone would be altered. Starting with Charlie.

He snorted and grumbled and eventually coughed out a reply.

"What in God's name were you doing with that boy this weekend, Isabella? And it damn well better not have anything to do with what you look like now."

"We weren't having sex Charlie."

Now he matched Rosalie's "special" red heels.

"He was asking me to marry him. And I said yes."

As an afterthought I added, "No I'm not pregnant."

He doubled over and made a tiny smile form on my mouth at the invectives spewing out of him.

"Damn, I don't think I've even heard Jake call him a dirty douchepacker. Do I even want to know where you picked that one up?"

The mention of Jake gave him a spark of determination, thinking that he could use him to guilt me away from Edward. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't know that my guilt cup had runneth over, and any leftover for Jacob was merely spill off. Where once my anxiety kept me clinging to ties that needed to be trimmed, now my feelings for him could be wiped up with a dirty sponge and wrung out in the sink.

It wasn't that I didn't have feelings for Jake, even complex ones at that. I owed him my sanity and safety while Edward was gone. I may have been in the clear then, with my unceasing expression of my devotion to my nonexistent vampire; but even I could admit I muddied the water upon his return. He may have known that I loved his enemy, but I continuously sought him out, and didn't establish new boundaries now that I was taken. I shrugged away concerns of his devotions with the assurance that my feelings towards him were strictly platonic. I didn't recognize that our brother and sister relationship was out of the Oedipus family for him. Still I let it go on.

Of all my faults though, I could bear the brunt of this one on my own. I knew that I let Jake linger because somewhere in my mind I hadn't trusted Edward to stay. It wasn't reflective of him, today especially exemplified that. It was fear of my own failings and my mistaken perception of Edward as anything but a man with weakness and fears of his own.

Jake, despite being a werewolf was approachable. He grew and changed, bled and breathed, failed and fell. And though he was far stronger than I was, I had the upper hand. I was older and more mature, smarter and wise beyond my years, and Jake was just a frisky pup. He was that processed unidentifiable meat hot dog on a bun with a shelf life of a billion years with relish made from uranium. Not something you could eat everyday, not particularly healthy, but completely comforting. Eating too much of it would get you sick, but at times it hit the spot and filled the hole. From the start, Jake filled the hole. But like all gut bombs, it was always going to come back on you. You could play off the indigestion, but when you start spewing meat by-product to the point it ruins all food for you, it's time to call it quits.

Today, Jake's months of disregard and disrespect of me and my relationship, and his blatant blackmail manipulation to make me kiss him, caused me to cough up wolfy by-products. Let them be squeezed out from a smelly sponge, and slide down the drain. I learned today of my selfishness and self-absorption. I hated hurting others, but I could only be spread so far. Manning up to my sins and repairing Edward were as far as I could see now. Jake would have to deal with his pain on his own.

"Bells, that nonsense coming out of your mouth can wait. I just came from the Blacks. Jacob's hurt. Real hurt. He crashed that damn motorcycle of his and tore himself up something nasty. Billy won't take him to the hospital because of his damned prejudices. You need to go to him. He's asking for you."

A laugh bubbled up, coming from a dark and demented place within me, and erupted across the kitchen. On it went, manic and cruel, baffling and angering Charlie. I could have sooner picked up Emmett than have stopped it. It had been building since the beginning of this tragic melodrama, and wouldn't stop until the irony was revealed.

"Are you hopped up on something Bella? I didn't think Edward was the type to get you involved with shady things, though it would explain those dark circles under his eyes.... and all the Cullen kids. Is there meth lab in the back of that mansion? Is that how they have such nice cars? What have you gotten yourself into?!"

Well that stopped the laughter. Though it sorely tempted a different kind.

"Really Dad, a meth lab? Are you so adverse to me marrying Edward that you have to turn him into a drug dealer? I'm not 'hopped' up on anything besides anger at the irony of that 'douchepacker' if you will, injuring himself after I practically threw away everything I have with Edward to save his sorry ass."

Charlie's face might never return to its normal expression after the workout it was receiving tonight.

"So you're not getting married?!"

Joy. Then a pause.

"What do you mean you saved him?"

Sighing, I mentally rearranged the supernatural circumstances to give Charlie the truth. I knew at this point, he was eager for the ignorant state of denial we'd both existed in since I moved in, but if I had my way, I wouldn't be here much longer. I could at least give us this modicum of truth between us.

"Sit down, it's a long story- that does not involve impregnating or meth labs, so please do not jump to conclusions or race after your service revolver."

Begrudgingly we sat across from each other at our tiny little table. Night after night we sat in silence, and now it all would come barreling out.

"Edward and I were in Port Angeles. We had stepped into a store, and unbeknownst to me, Jacob was there as well. He overheard Edward mentioning our engagement. He yelled and knocked over a shelf, and ran out of the store like demons were chasing him. I turned on Edward and asked if he had seen him when he said it, and his face spoke volumes. Instead of being miffed with how Edward handled it, but letting it go, I ran after Jacob instead. I found him on the street, mounting his motorcycle. He snarled at me about how he obviously meant nothing to me, why did I bother coming after, him, etc.. Then he said he'd spare me the trouble of having to worry about him by crashing his bike.

"I didn't realize that he was bluffing and trying to trap me. All I saw was the pain I had caused him. I was crying and screaming at him to not sacrifice himself for me and that I would do anything to make it right.

"He told me to ask him to kiss him. I refused at first, but then he started talking about how he'd crash the bike, so I interrupted him and asked. It seemed like such a small price to pay to save his life. He pulled me towards him and smothered me. I'll save you the details, but it was forceful and violent, and the exact opposite of how Edward treats me. I tried to pull away but he wouldn't let me, and he took the noises I made as encouragement, and somehow got me to respond.

"Eventually he pulled away, with a smug grin all over his face, but it was directed over my shoulder. He kissed me again, hopped on his bike and drove away. His mission was complete. Edward had seen the whole thing, and as far as he was concerned, now hurt the way he did.

"I was left standing in the road, staring at a frozen Edward, begging him to understand. He never said a word. I don't know how long we stood there, but I guess a car came along that didn't see me, or I it. Edward pushed me out of the way and took the brunt of the impact. Hence the blood and dirt and tears all over me.

"It blurs after that. I called Carlisle who was also in town shopping with Esme. He's pretty badly hurt, but nothing so serious that Carlisle couldn't fix him at home. They're working on him right now. I wanted to be there, but the last thing they needed was my hysterics and fainting at the blood, so Esme dropped me off."

I stopped there, letting Charlie absorb everything. I needed to let his view of the characters involved realign with the story. It wasn't exactly as it occurred, but it was close enough; the actions, intent, and pain were all accounted for. All I really left out was why I responded to him. I doubt my father wanted to hear his daughter was desperate for some action.

Quietly he asked,

"Edward will forgive you won't he?"

I was surprised he was concerned about him, but maybe this finally opened his eyes to Jacob's flaws. Perhaps he would no longer give him the blanket benefit of the doubt and be constantly pushing me towards him.

"I don't know. I'm just now realizing how insecure he's always been about my relationship with Jake. Something I always scoffed and never addressed with him. It's going to take a lot of work to erase the image of his brand new fiancé making out with the guy she swore she only felt brotherly affection towards."

He winced in empathy for Edward, or maybe at the mental image of his daughter making out.

"I suppose I owe you both an apology for always pushing Jacob to pursue you. I was just so angry with Edward for hurting you and I thought Jake would be a better choice. I never thought that he was too immature to deserve you. I won't make you go see Jake, Bella. I do think you need to talk this out with him at some point, but you've got bigger fish to fry right now. How are you going to fix this?"

Of course he asked such a pertinent question. The answer to which still eluded me.

"I have no idea. Eventually we need to talk about it, but words are often immaterial. I just plan to take care of him. I've never done that before. I've always let him handle everything and then gotten angry when he didn't do what I thought he should. That's not much of a relationship. "

"Are you still getting married? Won't you two have a lot to work through before that?"

"If he will have me, yes, we will. It won't fix everything, but even at this lowest point, our love is not the question, it's the answer. I have faith in Edward's love for me, and the only way I can restore his, is just to love him."

He looked away and at the table. For two awkward people who had never shared a meaningful conversation before, this was stretching both of us to our limits. With his head in his hands, he gruffly spoke,

"Honestly, I knew it was coming. Jake was my last ditch effort to keep you here. But you can't keep something that's not yours anymore. You gave yourself to him, and whether I like it or not, he loves you and will keep you safe. For what it's worth, you have my blessing.

"Now go upstairs and get cleaned up. I suspect you'll be spending all your time at the Cullen's for a while, and you can't fight for your boy... man... whatever, if you catch a cold."

I had been short sighted towards Charlie too. I never once suspected this depth of understanding or compassion. I always knew he loved me, but it was never in an obvious way. Now he was putting aside his fatherly objections, his desperate need to keep me his little girl, and giving me into the hands of another.

I stood and walked around to his chair, and sat in his lap. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pressed my head underneath his chin, like it was when he was my Daddy and I was just his baby girl.

However awkward it may have been to have his 18-year-old daughter sitting on him, he ignored it and held me closely, kissing the top of my head.

"I love you Dad. I may have given my heart away, but I loved you first. Thank you for letting me go."

I thought I heard him choke a bit, but he covered it up as he replied,

"I love you too Isabella. And I'll love you last."

~*~

I grabbed a bag out of my closet and started pulling clothes into it. I had showered and gotten cleaned up a few minutes ago, giving my mind and body a much needed thirty minute vacation in hot water. I hadn't heard from the Cullens yet, but I when I did, I would be prepared. I probably packed too much, but once I got there, I didn't want to have to leave for the mundane necessities of spare underwear. I debated bringing books, but decided there was nothing here that at least one of the Cullens didn't already possess.

Unable to think of anything else I might need, I went downstairs to be closer to the phone. Filling my time, I puttered around the kitchen, fixing sandwiches for Charlie and myself. I stuffed a few in the fridge for him to eat later, and wrapped up the rest to take to the Cullens. I knew they'd feed me, but I didn't want to be in the position of being taken care of so I decided to be self-sufficient; heading off into unknown waters via PB&J's. No one said you couldn't be intrepid with a 5-year-old's sandwich of choice.

Strident knocking interrupted my mental ramblings, and I went to answer the door, fearing that it would be an ambassador from Jake or bad news from Edward. Dreading either, I opened it to reveal Rosalie.

She arched her eyebrow at me, and turned and walked back to her BMW. Speech was apparently below her.

I ran back to the kitchen to retrieve my bag and Charlie's food. I deposited his non-kindergarten variety sandwiches on his lap, and kissed his head.

"I'll call when I can."

With that I stepped out the door to face whatever Rosalie was going to throw at me.

Her silence was a blatant tactical strategy. She was trying to break me down. Normally it would have worked. Hell it was close to being successful now. I wanted to pester her with questions. Did they heal him? Was he going to be ok? How did he seem? Did he ask about me?

The last one was what kept me from breaking. If I asked her such an adolescent question she'd probably drop me off at the middle school.

Rounding the edge of town, she smirked. Immortality may have heightened her tenacity, but she still lacked patience. I'd say this round was a draw. I didn't fall apart and she didn't throw me from the car. Yeah, we were making improvements.

"The asshole won't let us fix him. His flare for the dramatics has him huffing that he wants to wallow in his pain. Something lofty about the poignancy of the physical pain is the manifestation of the death of his soul."

Translation, Edward had thrown them from the room without a word.

"Who elected you to come get me? What can I possibly do to put a vampire back together?"

"You broke it. You buy it. Unless you had a pressing date with the mutt that you need to rush off to instead."

"I'm only going to explain myself to Edward."

"Answer the question, Bella. Are you sticking around?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, and felt like Edward. God but she was taxing.

"Sorry, sis, you're stuck with me."

And with that, she threw her head back and laughed. Seeing that made me almost feel bad for Royce. That crazy harpy was the last thing he saw before he died.

"Good."

While I was ever so glad I had passed this bizarre test of Rosalie's, I still had no idea how I was supposed to accomplish this. Yes I wanted to put things back the way they were supposed to be, but I didn't think it would start with basic vampire assembly. I said as much to the sadistic blonde next to me.

"Pain makes me bitchy. You can only imagine how Edward deals with it. His hissy fit has damn near destroyed his room, and much to my eternal dismay, it's rather hard to pull one over on a brother who hears your every thought. Emmett managed to at least crash into his arm hard enough to shove it back into place. But trying to pin him down and close his wounds just results in him losing more venom. When I left Alice was consulting with Jasper via cell phone for strategic capture and lick clean maneuvers."

My usual mental filtering was shot with that one, I was just glad I refrained from reminding her that a pillow facing the wrong way made her bitchy.

"So you, in all your infinite vampire wisdom, decided to come get me to, 'lick him?' That's the master plan?"

She laughed at me again. I'd never seen Rosalie show even an ounce of emotion before, nonetheless mirth.

"Who knew innocent little Bella had some freak in her. Smell that excitement in the air. You certainly jumped all over that conclusion."

I chose to ignore the possible truth of that as she continued.

"The 'master plan,' as you so eloquently put it, is not for you to lick him. While I'm sure both of your repressed selves could greatly benefit from some of that, all your saliva would do is absorb the venom, and then we'd be stuck with both of you screaming like little bitches.

"If you had stopped to think, you might have remembered the circumstances behind Edward, Esme, and my change. We were all near death, and while Carlisle's venom turned us into vampires, it first had to patch us back together again. Fever had fried Edward's brain. Esme's spine was broken. I was beaten and battered. Our venom is poisonous, but it also has healing properties. One of us has to seal Edward's wounds, and we can't do that with him flailing around. If you're there he won't because he'd risk hurting you."

I was loathe to that she could have lead with that point and made things a lot clearer. I knew half the point of this was to taunt me. She was doing this to save her brother, as ridiculous as she thought he was being, not to include me. What the hell, I'd call her on it anyway.

"Why are you doing this Rosalie? You and I both know this won't kill him, and it's abundantly clear you think he's overreacting. I especially can't fathom why it's you coming to get me. This is Alice's territory. Your job is to sneer at me, and after today, reaffirm to him your disbelief over why he's with me. Seeing you at the door I half expected you'd come to play Grim Reaper."

She tilted her head away from the road and glared at me. I think she was trying to look as malicious as possible to make me back down and not make her explain her motives. I held her gaze, and with a disgruntled harrumph she elaborated.

"Well, 'sis,' maybe I understand a little better than Alice does what it is that Edward needs right now. You may scoff, but one of the reasons Edward and I can't stand each other most of the time is we're far too similar. I mock his theatrics because I would, and have done, the same thing. My hysterics were always much more flamboyant, but Edward and I both feel the weight of this existence. You know my story and the betrayal I faced. I was a mess and acted out for years. You may think I'm moody now, but it's nothing comparatively. And most of it was directed at my dear brother. Finally though, ironically in the forest, I found something to put me back together again."

I wondered if part of Rose's anger at leaving Forks stemmed from the reminder it gave her of meeting Emmett. It was a level of sentimentality I'd never expected from her.

"Emmett patched up my holes and gave not only himself and his love, but he gave me back myself. Edward's broken now. A large part of that is your fault, but if I had to hazard a guess, this has been coming for 80 years. He's wrapped too tight, and takes on too much. You let him bear the brunt of it, but even if you hadn't, he would have bore it anyway. It's who he is. I don't want him to suffer, but this is good for him. Or will be if you're there for him during it. You're his Emmett; you've got the ability to help him let go of his rigid control, and accept that he finally has a partner; someone to face this existence with.

"We all have to fall apart sometimes, this is Edward's turn, and it's your job to help him through it. And despite what you think, I love my brother, and for all of Alice's omniscience, she doesn't understand what the heart of the issue is. She lives in the way things should be, and rarely in the realities of how things are."

I knew then I would have to ask Alice to keep from looking. I needed to work through this with Edward without the interference of anyone else, no matter how genuine their help may be.

"Edward was hurt by your betrayal, but you know he would forgive you anything. Right now he's bone scared that he's going to lose you. He knows what that feels like now. He did it once by choice, and he wound up huddling in a hole in South America. When I told him you were dead, he tried to off himself. Now here he is, faced with the prospect of you walking away from him, and all he can do is watch you go. He can't run away this time or try and kill himself, because he swore to you he wouldn't. And right now those promises are all he has. So he's wallowing in the terrifying prospect of an eternity without you.

"You're the only one who can ease that fear. So yeah. I came and got you."

We approached the hidden turn off as she finished her speech. I still don't know if Rosalie liked me, but it didn't matter. For all the snide 'sis' comments we had been throwing back and forth, her soliloquy was her way of accepting me as just that. In this moment she and I were connected by our love for that stubborn and vulnerable vampire down the road. It was, as they say, a start, and I need to let her know I recognized it as such.

"Rosalie?"

"Hmm?"

"Is Emmett going to make me wear one of those orange decoy vests during this?"

This time her laughter rang genuinely through the car with no intent besides amusement.

"Bella?"

"Hmm" I echoed back at her as we pulled into the garage.

"Call me Rose."

~*~

I took a moment to myself before I walked into the house. Inside everything I cherished was waiting for me. My next step would require setting aside my insecurities and immaturity, and using the guilt devouring me and channeling it into the strength to set things right. It would mean I needed to quit cowering behind my hair, blushing, and being clumsy and take my vampire by the hand to stand proudly beside him. It didn't matter if the world saw our discrepancies because Edward loved me. By giving into my own diffidence, I was doing that love a disservice. Just as his belief that my love would fade in time was not his decision to make; me doubting that he should love me was equally as impertinent. The disaster in the clearing showed me my fears, and opening the door into the mansion it was time I pushed mine aside I to start fresh.

For every season there is a time

He had killed, and I would heal him.

He had broken down, and I would rebuild him.

And finally it would be our turn to love.

* * *

~*~

**Chapter Notes:**

Bizarre and subtle references included therein:

The myth of Achilles

John Mayer's song, "Gravity"

William Wordsworth poem: "The World is too much with us"

Robert Frost poem: "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Regina Spektor song, "Reading Time with Pickle"

Ecclesiastes 3….or the Byrds song, "Turn, Turn, Turn"

Please review and let me know what you think. Hopefully this chapter lets you know it will not all be the doom and gloom of the first. I wanted to jump right into her fixing things with Edward, but she had to get in the right headspace first, and channel that guilt into something productive. Consider this chapter the bridge, and please do review 


	3. Touch

Still not mine. Nor are any of the references listed below. Thanks again to my sister for being a sounding board and for everyone who is reading and enjoying my story.

* * *

~*~

I could hear no music coming from his room. Of all the things to notice, it was the lack of any harmony seeping through the cracks. No arabesques or sonatas; no avant-garde acoustic Indie rock; no angry screeching metal and synthesizers, nor sound of any kind emanated from within. Not being able to hear Edward's music was the same as not seeing his reflection in the mirror; it gave no sign of his existence. His music was my small glimpse into his thoughts and emotions that slipped past the mask he wore towards the world. When he left last September, "Death of Isolde," poured from his car at his arrival, as a hint of what was to come. To this day I can't even watch old Warner Brothers cartoons because Wagner sends me into hysterics; Bugs Bunny induced PTSD.

Nothing but silence greeted me as I opened the door to the darkened room. No sign to judge the contents within besides my light saturated eyes. By the time they adjusted, my determination and confidence had slipped away as surely as any sign of vitality had from him. On our bed, the once golden sheets had been sullied by dirt and venom and would never be the same. I didn't want to look past them though, to see the vampire bleeding upon them staring at the ceiling in resignation. All my resolve that led to my truthfulness with Charlie, and candid conversing with Rosalie, was shot at my first glance at him.

An unquenchable desire rose inside me: a need to fling myself at him; to sob uncontrollably; to mumble and mutter inconsolably against his chest; to crawl inside him and never part. I wanted to forsake everything for a few moments of comfort inside his arms. I burned with the need for him to console me with his unfailing love and protection. My body swayed towards him, ready to take from him, without a thought or care for what he needed.

It was with that thought that I overcame my own selfish impulses. I refused to sacrifice his needs for my own. Doing so was why I stood here now instead of lying on that bed with him, planning our future and dreading our nuptials. With a sigh I dampened my traitorous proclivities and focused on the task at hand; super- gluing a vampire.

His head turned away from the ceiling towards the windows, as my nearly inaudible lament reached his ears. I felt that it had implied something to him, though it was impossible to determine what. I could choose to fret over it, or I could move forward. Worrying would accomplish nothing, so I walked to the bed.

His eyes were scrunched closed and his hands were clenched, but there was no other sign of movement. Judging by the sheer amount of venom pooled below and still pouring from him, I doubted he was capable of budging much. That realization caused panic to swell within me. Before me was this fallen angel broken before me. I desperately needed to explain and beg for forgiveness, but to do so now would be selfish and futile. Words would not put the pieces back together, and he would only lie there hurting while I eased my conscience.

Trembling, I lowered myself to the bed and reached for him. He may not have been able to shy away, but his face caved, as if he awaited a blow. If I allowed myself to absorb that action I would have crumbled before him. Instead I stared at his matted locks, filled with debris and venom, sticking to his head for the first time I could recall.

Delicately I raised my hand to wipe his sticky brow and was met with a shudder. Brushing away his hair I was filled with an unbearable tenderness for him. He was not my invincible immortal; he was an aching man and needful boy. His wariness of my touch broke my heart but did not daunt me. Just as he acclimated himself to my scent so long ago, I would work as hard to do the same to comfort him. In this moment he was as fragile as he perceived me to be. I caressed his head with feather light strokes, removing the intruding dirt, and trying to infuse my love into each stroke. My other hand followed the first, along his sunken cheeks and square jaw; across his strong nose and prominent eyebrows; gently over his hidden eyes and around his grimacing mouth. On and on I touched him in silence; until inch by infinitesimal inch, his face relaxed from his stricken expression and his head minutely leaned into my hands.

I never once stopped movement as I crawled across the pillows behind him and wrapped myself around his head. I moved from side to side, warming him with my body, relaxing him with my hands, hopefully soothing him with my care. Ever so slowly I increased the pressure and dragged my fingers lower: circling his temples and around his ears; pushing my thumbs into his non-existent pulse points and lightly scratching his Adam's apple. Deftly avoiding his open wounds dripping on my thighs, I reminded him of our first time in our meadow; idly drawing patterns on his skin. He had nearly purred at the feeling, rejoicing at being touched with love.

Back and forth I went, between his hair and his neck, never allowing my hands to lift from him; a constant reminder of my presence. It was as imperative as my gasping breath that he know I was there beside him, that I always would be. He had to know that when he hurt I would care for him; when he was low I would comfort him; that I knew no other way to exist than to love him. So I would go on for as long as he would let me, pausing only for a cracking whisper of a voice.

"Bella."

I wanted to say something profound, declaring my intentions and sorrow in my first word to him. All that came out was a shaky,

"Yes?"

"Why... why are you here?'

"Where else would I be?" I asked incredulously.

"Home."

Leaning over his head I pressed my lips to the worry mark between his eyes and answered him as honestly.

"I am home."

He blew out the breath I hadn't realized he'd been holding, and lifted his head into my lap. It wasn't forgiveness, but it did purvey his acceptance of my presence, maybe even his desire for it.

"I realize the impertinence of my request, and I promise it will be my last, but before you.."

His voice broke off mid-sentence, unable to complete it, unknowing I would give him everything he asked for, and even what he didn't.

With his head in my lap, I pulled myself even closer to him until he could feel the warmth of my belly. The change of position let me cradle him to me, and tilt his head until he was forced to look into my eyes, and see my silent plea for him to continue.

"Before you leave, will you let me hold you, here beside me, one last time?"

He stared at me, braced for my denial, begging for me to condescend to love him. Resolve be damned, I couldn't stop my tears from falling on him, the burning of my face, or my choking dismay. As if I would ever let go of him, but still, his health took a priority.

"You can hold me for as long as it takes you to fall asleep just as soon as you let Carlisle heal you. For all my stubbornness, I don't know that even I can lift your unmovable arms high enough to crawl into them."

It was unnecessary to ask why he had refused help in the first place. Seeing him now, it was plain as day. He was not suicidal, but neither did he have the will to live. He had been, and perhaps still was hopeless. Without hope, there is no life, so he had chosen to lay here and merely exist.

He nodded his acquiescence to my implied question, so I raised my head in the direction of the door and spoke merely a name.

"Carlisle."

By the time I turned back to Edward, Carlisle was walking through the door; a bowl in one hand and tongs grasping gauze in the other, a grateful and relieved smile on his face.

"Bless you Bella, for making him see the light."

I couldn't except or acknowledge his appreciation, so I sought to divert him with a question he already anticipated.

"In the past, when my children have been injured, their spouses have attended to them. For some reason, Emmett prefers for Rose's methods of venom delivery than his father or mother's. Edward, having never been quite as reckless as my other sons, has never sustained any injuries he could not repair on his own, and thusly this has never been an issue. Though I would assume, considering the extent and placement of his injuries, that he would not appreciate the direct delivery approach, as you will."

A hint of a wry smirk tugged on Edward's mouth.

"Yes, Carlisle, I far prefer a communal bucket of the family's spit applied via antiseptic gauze, than listening to Emmett's chants of "ass kisser" for the next millennium."

Never before had dry sarcasm filled me with euphoria. I wouldn't care if he forever remained snarky; it was a sign of him making an effort. Within him some will existed and I had done naught but rub his head and promise him he could hold me. There were still miles to traverse, but the first step had been made.

"Bella I thought you might want to assist me. If you use the forceps, the venom I collected will never touch your skin. Normally it would be unnecessary for you to need them, but frankly, if there was any way for the venom to find its way into the bloodstream through the epidermis, it would be with you."

Edward nodded very gravely at his words, so I chose to ignore my natural propensity to argue the point, since they were inevitably right. That and I reveled in being able to do something so basic as tend to his wounds. One day I would stand before God and vow to love and protect this man through sickness and in health. Today I bound myself to him not with words, but with that oath made flesh.

Though it was made difficult by the irony of Edward's desire to not burden me.

"Please do not feel obligated to do this, you really don't have to. It's not right for you to have to take care of me."

Silly, irrational vampire.

"Try and stop me. The only thing not right is that I never have before.

Now tell me how to do this and what I can do to ease the pain of it."

Edward didn't address my commentary, but he relaxed his tense shoulders in response. Carlisle quickly led by example, asking me to remove Edward's tattered and torn Oxford while he ripped what was left of his pants. I expected Edward to comment about his bareness, since I had never seen him in so little clothing before. Instead he peered at me, searching my face for signs of my discomfort. Of course he would think of me, while he bled out...or oozed as it may be. I reassured him with a final pass through his hair and a lingering kiss on his forehead. Quickly I lowered his head to the pillow and moved out from beneath him to better reach his wounds.

I took the forceps from Carlisle, saturated the gauze in the venom, and trailed it across his lacerations with enough pressure to push the venom inside. The doctor said I was doing it right, and explained how they had different variations of venom for different fluidly functions. Only the kind secreted from their saliva glands had the required healing properties. Admittedly I tuned him out, preferring to watch the miracle before me.

I had started with the gash at Edward's neck; it worried me the most having seen Victoria gnawing at him there. Surprisingly it was a clean wound, resembling more a cut from a knife that an actual bite. As I rubbed the venom into it though, I watched the two sides seal themselves together. It was hard to rectify the thought of a substance that had, and hopefully would again, cause such agonizing pain to me; seemingly magically heal Edward. It was the chemical personification of our differences, that at our biological cores we were not the same. But science could speak naught of the marriage of true minds nor the binding of our souls.

Carlisle left the room, leaving me to my work, with a quiet word to his son. He had spoken it in order to include me, but I focused on the wounds, and not his loving remarks. I had enough to occupy me, for Edward's wounds were vast; scrapes across his abdomen, slices through his tendons, gouges in his back. Diligently I focused, repeating the process, dipping into the venom, saturating the cuts, and watching them seal. Every single one of them was attended to with the utmost care and attention. It had become a metaphor for the work I had to do on our relationship. Face every hurt, dress it with honesty, and wash away the pain so that it would heal.

Eventually the job was done, all under the watchful eye of my vampire. He seemed to be waiting for me to give up and flee, but upon completion, all I did was try to get closer. Not caring about the venom stains, I crawled up his body, sustaining my weight and nuzzled his neck.

"Do you want me to lay beside you now?"

His non-injured arm stirred beside me, but only succeeded in brushing against my knee with the lightest of touches. Scowling he said with a defeated murmur,

"More than anything, but despite your kindly doctoring, it seems my stubbornness has caused me to lose too many fluids for movement."

Before I had been too focused on reading his emotional state through his eyes to notice their color. He looked as if he had lost the fight that had so injured him; both his pupils and the bags below them were blackened. He was desperately in need of nourishment. It was time for me to summon Emmett, and hope that the errand I had sent him on upon my arrival to distract him had been successful.

Sitting back behind his head, I called for his brother. He stared at me intently, as always trying to probe into my thoughts. I felt a twinge of sadness that he didn't ask me for them, for surely I would lay them all before him if he so desired, but he seemed to scared to ask anything past his one request of me.

I answered his question upon Emmett's arrival.

"Did you get the take-out?"

Emmett still looked at me as crazily as he had when I first made the suggestion to him. When I had arrived and walked into the common area, he had been pacing by the window, intermittently growling that his brother wouldn't let him come to his aid. He was incapable of watching his family suffer and having no avenue to fix it. Esme reminded him that Edward would need to go hunting once he came to his senses, and that Emmett could assist him then. Conversely he responded with an audacity I had never seen any of the Cullen kids show towards their mother figure.

"How the fuck is he going to be able to go hunting? He lost half of his goddamn venom dodging us. He threw me out of the room and went ass over tea kettle onto his bed, where he stayed pissing out his life force in his refusal of our help!"

Esme, ever aware of her children's pain, had judiciously ignored his outburst at her, but I intervened before it got worse. Making the suggestion that Emmett just go fetch something for him and bring it back, was met with the same reaction as if I had just made out with Aro in front of him. Confusion and clarifications commenced, in which I had to explain that I did not mean that he should sling a cougar over Edward's prone body for him to snack on. Eventually though, with much grumbling on his end about loss of flavor and that it was just uncouth to eat in bed, he left to take care of the problem.

"Yeah. Sorry bro, it absorbed the flavor of the container, so it tastes like ass. It may not be fresh from the tap, but it'll fill the hole til you can nab your own."

Opening his brown paper bag, (apparently he took me quite literally) he pulled out several thermoses.

"I, uh, didn't know what kind you were in the mood for, so I met up with Jasper and we kind of got you a buffet. There's elk, deer, black bear, cougar, and coyote."

He announced the last one with a devious grin that prompted Edward to respond in kind.

"If it already tastes like filth, I may as well keep with the theme. Pass the dog."

It was a testament to how much things had changed that I didn't even blink at that. Instead I rose from the bed and kissed his nose.

"I'll give you some privacy for your vampire moment."

He looked reluctant and surprised. He didn't seem to fathom that I wouldn't fight him about being around when he had his dinner. I could trust him, and I still believe rightfully so, to never hurt me at any cost, but he did it for my protection. It was time I finally respected that.

Unfortunately, I may have closed his physical wounds, but his inner ones had barely been patched.

"Will you come back?"

I leaned over him until I could meet his eyes.

"I will always come back to you."

~*~

I grabbed my bag, and stepped around all the mess he had made in his resistance, and went to find Alice.

"In my room." echoed up the stairs at me.

She was sitting on her bed with a blank look in her eyes.

"What does it mean that you can't see anything?"

"Jacob isn't going to come storming the house and steal you away, if that's what you're implying. Either you're still clueless as to what to do or Edward hasn't decided if he's going to accept it. It's almost like you're back on that cliff ledge, your toes are at the very end, but you can still step back or leap. That whim has yet to be played out, but it's coming. I keep seeing a vision, of myself having a vision. Not altogether helpful."

I could feel an Alice hissy fit building. For all my cracks about her fashion obsession and Edward's annoyance that she's a little know it all, we both tended to ignore that they were her coping measures. With no memory of her human life and her only hints of it being a hellish existence, she chose to be optimistic about life instead, and expressed it through making her own little part of the world beautiful. Her visions were much the same. They were as much as part of her as hearing or tasting. It was no wonder she panicked when her visions failed, it was the equivalent of her being blind. For those reasons I could forgive her impatient griping that Edward and I get our acts together so she can beta the finale.

"I'm sorry that you're flying blind Alice, but right now I'm pleased. I don't think I could bear to know how it all ends. It would take away the sacrifice and the effort of us getting there on our own. And that's what we need, to put aside everything and everyone else and just be us with no interference. Our relationship has gotten a bit crowded lately, and it's time to do some restructuring.

I hope you know, that this is by no means a commentary on you or the countless times you have saved us. Because it's not. Without you, it's quite possible Edward and I would have never reunited, or if he had been successful, neither one of us would be here now. I don't know if I ever told you how much I love and thank you for that. Maybe I could go halfsies with Edward on the Porsche?"

"You'd have to stay conscious after he told you what it cost for you to go 'halfsies' with him. And geeze, I can take a hint. I'll just stay here in my room, by myself, in vision constipation. Feel free to stay indecisive."

I may never bet against her, but I would find a way to thwart her when this was finally resolved. Until then I decided to give her information since underneath being pissed off, she was legitimately concerned for us. In her own "I must know everything," way.

"His wounds are healed and Emmett's providing him with blood as we speak. According to Carlisle he'll be sore for a bit, but he should regain movement shortly. Then he'll get cleaned up and we'll.."

I trailed off with the formation of an idea that was promptly interrupted by a squeal.

"He's still on emotional lock down, so I don't know how he will respond. But here's what you were going to ask me for. And for the record, I know my brother. He won't tolerate being babied, but this is right. I may watch out for him, but there's a role that his family cannot fulfill. For the past half century that I have known him he's been an island unto himself. Take care of him. No one else ever has. He should be almost done, everything else you need should be in there."

I hugged her in appreciation, determined that no one would ever doubt how I felt for them again, and turned to leave.

"And Bella? It's just the two of you now. I won't look anymore. I trust you."

~*~

"Alright mister, you've been stitched up and fed. It's time to wash the day off of you."

He was sitting up in the bed, surrounded by stained sheets, wearing nothing but his boxers with various expressions shifting across his face. Relief, and what I could only describe as a cross between self-loathing and annoyance.

"If you're only here to play nursemaid, please don't concern yourself. You have no debt to pay. I will be...strong...again soon enough."

Yes, we still had miles to go.

I went to him, picked up his hand and placed it over my heart, vaguely wondering if he could hear it cracking at his inference.

"Are you just babysitting me every time you keep me from tripping? When you hold me when I'm upset? When you patch me up? Do you protect me out of duty, Edward?"

He yanked back his hand in anger.

"Are you being deliberately obtuse? What else would I do? Let you fall? Let you hurt? Leave you wounded? I may be a soulless monster, but even I am not heartless enough to watch you suffer."

"Then you think I am."

I paused, just long enough for him to confirm or deny it, but he only held his shaking head between his hands.

"If Esme, Rose, and Alice take care of their mates, why is it any different when I do it? It's not a debt repayment, it's my job. All you've ever done is sacrifice yourself for me Edward. It's my turn. Let me take care of you. Please."

He pulled me next to him on the bed, rougher than usual, and rested his head in the crook of my neck. He stayed there for a moment; inhaling my scent, exhaling his weariness, listening to the clomping of my heart, and feeling the rise of my chest. I held him to me, reveling in his presence, in the flush of my skin where his head met, in the feel of his hair between my fingers, in the smell of him that clouded my head with love for him.

"You can have anything that is mine to give you, Bella. Just please, I beg of you, don't sacrifice your happiness for me."

I felt the weight of his agony deep inside me; crashing and crumbling everything that I was, and breaking me apart. I wanted to give in, and sink into its depths and never resurface. But he carried its weight, and so would I.

Attempting to lift his face, I tried to speak through the lump in my throat.

"Look at me. You. Are. My. Happiness."

His eyes met mine as I continued.

"The only way I could forgo my happiness is to see you enduring such pain. I cannot bear to see you hurt, even if it's at my own hands. I will not ask for your forgiveness yet, but I will ask you to let me in. Let me help. Share your burden with me. "

"You have nothing to feel guil.."

I cut him off, with my hand over his mouth.

"Shut up Edward. I have never said that to you before, and I hope to never again have to. But do not say that. I have everything to feel guilty about, but that's not what this is about. This is so much more. I can live with the guilt. I cannot live without giving you my love."

He stared at me, long and hard, trying to discern the truth behind my words. I never looked away or even blinked, it was far too imperative that he knew the veracity of my statement. Time passed and mountains moved before he looked away, a small smile on his hand-covered mouth. The faintest of pressures resonated from his lips against my palm.

"How do you propose to wash me then?"

~*~

Slower than I had ever seen him move, Edward made his way into the bathroom. He wouldn't accept my aid, but offered me his hand in its stead. He was reaching out and letting me in. Palm to palm, he connected himself to me as surely as a holy palmer's kiss.

As he stepped into the darkened bathroom, lit only by tiny flickering flames, and the steam dancing among them, I realized it looked more like a romantic interlude than a healing bath. I started to panic and pull away, worried he would think I was presuming we were ready for that, or that I was trying to push past his boundaries.

"I. I. Uh. I can wait in your room, if...if you want me too. I don't have to be here. I dddon't want you to be uncomfortable or think that I'm pushing you. I swear I'm not trying to do anything. I just thought it would make you feel better. I'll just be outside. Take your time."

He wouldn't release my hand as he climbed into the steaming tub with a quiet moan of pleasure.

"If you can shove your bloody wrist in my mouth, then you can get in the damn tub."

It was the first time he had made reference to earlier today, but he did it as he was encouraging me to stay with him. I could feel our impending talk coming, but now was not that time. He wanted me to join him and I'd be damned if I denied him anything. I shed all my clothes except the bathing suit underneath that I had borrowed from Alice. Before stepping in, I hit play on the sound dock.

He maneuvered me until I was beside him, shoulder to shoulder, in the enormous sunken tub. The mugginess resonating in the air, illuminated by the candles, the low light, the haunting piano music, and the dichotomy of the delectably warm water and the chill of Edward's skin were an ethereal dream within a dream.

"Do you know which piece this is?"

I shook my head. I had merely selected it to play classical piano. It personified Edward, and I had wanted do anything that would make him feel more like him again.

"It's Debussy's Reverie. It's a dream-like or musing state in which one can be lost in their daydreams, " he sighed as I had begun to wash him.

With reverence I bathed him with a lathered washcloth. I rinsed away the dirt and venom; my dried blood and invisible tears; the pain and the agony of the day. Each swipe of the cloth and splash of the water renewed us. Gone were the days of my obliviousness and his martyring, of the misunderstandings and insecurities, of our imbalance. From here forth we would just be Edward and Bella, sharing our lives and ourselves with each other.

When I had washed all of him, he held me close to him, with my head on his shoulder, and his arms curling me into his body.

"This used to be my reverie, you know. For eighty years in my deepest heart of hearts, I dreamt of the intimacies of the touch of another. Their palm within my own, the caress of their hand upon my face, their head on my chest...to feel their breath across my neck and their body pressed close to mine. It's so often taken for granted, the simple feeling of someone else reaching out to you. But when you are denied it, you yearn and ache for it. For in that momentary connection with someone else, it eases the loneliness and keeps you a part of this world. I had nearly given up hope of ever finding that touch that resonates throughout my body and that comforts my soul; that dream of someday being loved. Until you. With you, I found my reverie. I found everything."

I clung to him tighter and kissed his heart. His may not beat, but there has never, and will never be another with such a capacity to love. I started to tell him as much, but he cut me off, tilting my head up to look at him.

"Don't say anything yet. I told you long ago I am a selfish man, and I am. I gave you up once for your protection, nonsensical as it may have been, and I nearly rotted inside without you. I thought though, that if ever you no longer wanted me, I would have the dignity to step aside for you. I was wrong, ever so wrong. I have to ask you, beg and plead you, my pride and dignity be damned, to please...please...do not leave me.

I'm so fucking scared of losing you Isabella. Even when I thought you were de....had...died...I wasn't this terrified, because I could follow you into the dark. But there's no place for me to go this time."

He was sobbing out his plea, his whole body shaking with the force of it.

"I will take you any way I can have you, your friend or your lover, or the neighbor down the road. Just please, keep me. Keep me in your life, even if you cannot love me anymore. The only thing in this world that I cannot bear is to lose you. Without you, there is no me."

Frantically I climbed into his lap and connected every part of my body with his. Our hands clasped, our chests pressed together, my legs tangled with his, my nose against his, our mouths breathed each other in, and our foreheads knocked as I combed my other hand into his hair. I cried the tears he couldn't and quivered with him. I would have glued us together if I could. I wanted to use my touch to fill every hole in him and eternally bind him to this world and myself.

" You won't be loved someday. You are loved today, as my friend and as my lover, as my world and my soul. I will hold and keep you Edward. There will never be a day when I won't reach out for you or want you by my side. There will never be a place I go that you cannot follow. Every choice I make is you. It will always be you. You cannot beg for something that is already and forever will be yours." Everything that I am, will always be you.

Our embraced tightened and lingered. The air cleared and the water cooled, yet still we held on.

It was not a victory or even a resolution.

It was two mouths breathing a cold and a broken hallelujah.

~*~

**Chapter notes:**

_References therein, in order of appearance:_

Music When the Lights Go Out- song by The Libertines

"Death of Isolde", from Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan and Isolde" (think pre-Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet…sorta)

Warner Brother's cartoon with Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny… "Kill the Rabbit" set to Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries"

Poem: We Wear the Mask- Paul Dunbar

Sonnet XVII- Neruda

Last Request- song by Paulo Nutini

Sonnet 116- William Shakespeare

Poem: No Man is an Island – John Donne

Romeo and Juliet- Shakespeare

Poem: Dream within a Dream- Edgar Allen Poe

Someday You Will be Loved and I Will Follow You into the Dark- by Death Cab for Cutie

Hallelujah- by Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, or Rufus Wainwright. Take your pick.

~*~

Thank you for the kind reviews and please keep them up. I'm eager to hear what you all think about the direction of the story, the emotion in it, and any critiques or suggestions you may have.

One final note, I want to clarify that this is by no means the extent of Edward and Bella's healing process, it's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I felt that Bella had to have a few loving actions to back up anything that might come out of her mouth first. But rest assured, that is coming.


	4. Take

A/N:

To ALL of you who have started reading this story and taken the time to review. You blow me away. Thank you.

To AngstGoddess003, author of Wide Awake, and , your recommendations made the hits on this story sky rocket. I am forever in your debt.

To my sister, yet again, for having to read this 9874 times, and yet somehow still giving me solid advice on it. Thanks Asshat.

Once again, neither Twilight or any of the references I may refer to in this are mine.

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"The sun is coming."

The dawn's rays cascaded into the room, warming the golden duvet, haloing heat hope around me. We had survived our darkest hour, and now there was a new day to make it alright.

Last night we remained in the tub, grasping at one another, reveling in the feel of the other's touch to reassure us both. While I had only sought to take care of him, the act of doing so healed me. His presence and vulnerabilities filled the aching void that never quite died upon his return. Deep inside me something recognized my guttural need to not only be with him, but to be of him. For two to ever be one. I knew now that I was in him, but I failed to bring him inside of me. To accept his needs, desires, fears, and failings as my own. With our bodies clinging together, I breathed him in, to keep him with me. In me. Of me.

Inevitably the water cooled and my traitorous body had begun to chill, forcing Edward into action. He had lifted me from our reverie, meticulously drying and dressing me. I had wanted to stop him, to tell him that I didn't want him to worry with me, because it was my turn to help him. But burning brightly in his eyes was the same need in mine. The night before he had been forced to step aside and let another man warm and protect what was his. He had to sit at a distance from my frozen body, and watch as his enemy's body envelope me with his heat. He listened as my blood warmed and flowed more rapidly, my breath sighed in relief, and I succumbed to the depths of oblivion mumbling another's name. He endured for my protection, but the call to reclaim his position as my protector and caretaker ate at him, as my guilt tore at me.

I kept silent and let him work, rubbing the towel over my damp body, removing every drop of water, and using the friction of movement to warm me. Instead of protesting when his soft jersey shirt covered my body, I inhaled his lingering essence imprinted into it. I stood still as he reached under it, with eyes averted, and removed the sodden suit; I gratefully accepted the drawstring flannel pajamas he put before me to step into. I had rested my head against his chest, covered in him from head to toe, and let him carry me to his, to our, bed. Piece by piece he had fed me my PB&J sandwich and gave me sips from my bottle of water; wiping my chin each time I took a sip. It didn't matter that he was the one in recovery, and physically I was fit. With each of his actions, it was a restoration of his battered pride and dignity. He wasn't asserting himself over me, but restating his claim as the one who had the right to take care of me. It was evidence of his burgeoning hope that I was still his, and his reminder to me that he wanted to be mine. Without a word, we had settled next to each other, palm to palm, to rest.

Now as I wakened to the new day, I found my hand empty, and Edward sitting on the couch, out of the light of the sun. His face neither empty nor hopeful, but a carefully studied mask of reservation. Physically he moved with more ease than he had last night, but as he began to speak, I found myself doubting that the night had renewed him as it had me.

"I wish I could give you the sun. Bring light and warmth into your life. Chase away the shadows with my love for you. But I've walked in the darkness and bathed in its blood. I have told you that I have killed, but I never elaborated, fearing the horrow that would pass your face. I have begged for your love, and yet I have never fully revealed to you what I am. By now I could sooner deliberately push you away as join you in your slumber, but I cannot lie about what I am anymore. It's not fair and it's not right."

I peered into the now blinding sun making my eyes water, to look directly at him.

"I know you. Who and what you are. Yesterday...let's just call it the revelation of Edward. I think for perhaps the first time I see you for who you are. What makes you think you're so dark?"

His gaze remained steadfastly on the floor in front of him. His shoulders caving in on themselves, battling with the demons I failed to free him from.

"You cradled me to you yesterday as if I were a man. You tended my wounds and washed my body. You cared for me as a wife cares for her husband. I am neither a man nor husband; fickle Fortuna has denied me such ambitions. No, I am the vile cretin whose lips are still stained by the tint of your blood. I am the leviathan made from a thousand still hearts. I am the leech sucking away your life. "

These were not pains that a kiss upon the brow could ease. He was expressing the depths of his self-loathing, something I had only seen hints of in the past. His vague insinuations at the beginning that he wasn't good for me, that he was the bad guy in this tale of ours, and his ever ceasing need to keep me from delving too far into his vampirism. He cringed at my hunting jokes and feared me ever joining him in that life.

I moved from the bed to the dimly lit couch, sitting close but not touching him. He sat there, immobile and contorted, with feral eyes recalling past brutalities, reeking of the power of a barely domesticated predator.

"Hey, listen to me. You keep waiting for me to condemn you for your past. To find fault with your vengeance. I never will. I understand that to an extent there is a beast inside of you, but it will never define who you are. It certainly isn't what you are. You are a man. I saw you stumble, fall, and bleed. I've seen you cherish and protect those you love. I look at you and feel your soul radiating from within, enveloping me. You are a man, a good man at that."

He tore from his seat, pacing the room, kicking books, clothes and anything in his path.

"Is it a good man who kills? Who feasts on the blood of another? Who so desperately desired someone to ease his loneliness that he dragged a mortal girl into this life? Who has seen her broken and near death because of him? Whose whole existence is so dangerous to her that he has to push her away lest she get too close and tempt his tenuous control? Whose coldness and jealousy compelled her into another's arms? Is that what you call a man?"

His voice rose progressively with acrimonious intonation, only to fall off to a dejected whisper. The books that had been left on the shelf were thrown to the floor interspersed with cracked cds. The destruction of the room and his self -antagonism mimicking the cracks in our foundation.

"Bella, I cannot be a man for you. I can't grow old beside you or shed tears at life's cruelty. I can't make love with you without fear, or grow my children inside you. I can't stand before God and swear to love you til our dying days. God doesn't recognize the likes of me. He makes the lambs, not the tigers in the forest of the night. I am the 108 year old monster lurking in your closet, yet still I pleaded with you to stay with me and become Mrs. Monster. Yes, such a man am I."

This was not in my 101 Ways to Make Your Vampire Boyfriend Feel Better About Himself Handbook. This was seat of your pants relationship issues that my 18 years as a human girl had not prepared me for. Even this thought proved how out of my league this issue was. My gut reaction was to scoff and tell him he was being ridiculous. I loved him as a man and vampire and when I was changed, ethics be damned, I would ready and willingly be his monster.

Yet, if there was one thing I had learned yesterday, it was not to trust my flippant instincts, for death and mayhem normally follow shortly thereafter. Instead of rushing to reassure him I analyzed his proclamation and found at the heart of it to be the same thing I suffered from; debilitating insecurities. Some were intrinsic and others I caused, but the only thing I could do was be honest with him.

"Edward I...almost don't know how to tell you this, because I fear you'll...nevermind. I just have to say it."

Good job, scare him after you spent all night trying to reassure him.

"When I said yesterday was a revelation, it was, on more levels than I even realized I was capable of thinking on. Everything, all of my actions, and even my thoughts were negligible, and they have been since you came back to me. Perhaps even since you left. The way I perceived myself, Jacob, and most especially you was intrinsically wrong. What occurred in the clearing was so heinous it cut all of my misconceptions and assumptions to the quick. Finally, I felt like I knew you, knew me, and could see my relationship with Jacob clearly. I'll address the latter later, because frankly you and I are more important."

That and I wanted to prolong the pain that conversation would cause us both.

"But Edward, you are a man, and that was never more clear than in that tent. I...I broke you. I know you heard what happened when I went after Jake, mere moments after you had declared my acceptance of your proposal the best night of your 108 years. You, who have withstood the agony of my blood, who sacrificed your own happiness for the protection of my life, who has _always _put me firs, and ignored your own desires and values in order to give me mine, you who has control and an iron will this world has never seen... was broken. Because of me. Because I never stopped to look past the marble of your skin and see that you can be weakened and hurt the same way I can."

The pain of my actions reverberated through me as I spoke, forcing me to curl into the fetal position, to protect myself from its onslaught.

"I have loved, obsessed, and venerated you as this being so beautiful and inhuman that it didn't occur to me that you would ever be prone to the same insecurities that every man suffers from; pain, jealousy, frustration, anger, desire, wants, needs, consolation or confusion. To think that all this time my behavior has begotten in you those responses terrifies and excites me. I never doubted that you loved me, but I feared it was in a far different manner than I loved you. My own insecurities made me not only doubt you, but that anything I could ever do would effect you. Until yesterday. Until I broke you in a way that only a woman can break a man."

His pacing ceased as my voice cracked and failed me. He stood still, watching me, cocooned around myself on his couch, as the silence reverberated through the room. His mind shifted and resolve weakened until he came to sit in front of me on the floor, simulating my body position. Idle tears may have come and gone, but they remained unnoticed and unimportant.

Abruptly I reared back in horror at the symbolism of how we were situated. Him below me on the floor, tucked into a distinctly vulnerable human position, with me looming over him. He was giving me the power; acknowledging that he would take whatever I had to give him, whether it bolstered or destroyed him. Snarling I threw myself to the ground. Beside him, toes touching, and knees knocking, we would be on the same level with one another.

Recognizing my actions for what they were, he shyly smiled and shook his head at his failed subjugation. I refused to let him move me onto the pedestal I had just knocked him from.

"Asserting that a 5'5 featherweight human girl 'broke' a vampire does little to hinder my emasculation."

"Emasculation, eh? Do you need your ego stroked, 'How you are a sexy stud, let me count the ways?"

With his laughter the insufferable intensity eased, and made it easier for the confessions to begin.

The smile faded from his face as he rested his head on his knees, and subsequently on mine as he spoke again.

"Bella, you keep me immutably perplexed and struggling with my identity. I'm a perfectionist and an over-achiever. I spent my humanity struggling to be every possible superlative to make my parents proud. I had to be the best student, a music prodigy, the fastest runner, and the most astute of all my peers. I wanted to be my father's Son, and my mother's little gentleman. I had ambitions to join the war effort and to fight the good fight. I was a walking army ad, always trying to be the best that I could be. I refused to allow failure to ever be an option. "

He looked up at me with apprehension, seemingly scared of what I would think of what he still had left to say.

"Then everything I had ever known changed. You couldn't be a young man striving for excellence, when you awake as a vampire. How does one succeed in that account? Kill the most people? Have the best stalking/hunting/throat tearing skills? My strengths followed me into this life, but failed to give me anything to strive towards other than something morally reprehensible. Then enters Carlisle's lifestyle. Initially it felt like a revocation of the sheer power of being a vampire. It was a struggle, to both suppress these new powers and my innate need to always live up to my potential."

His eyes revealed he had already decided what my reaction would be. They were filled with shame and remorse, and rapidly flickered around the room, only pausing to make contact with mine as his agitation grew.

"It didn't begin as a desire to take lives, though the growling beast within me thirsted for it. I just needed an outlet for the raging power coursing through me...a purpose if you will. Ultimately it led to what the family jokingly calls my 'rebellious' period. Rebellion, revolution, serial killing...all variations of the truth; that I murdered people under the guise of trying to channel my vampiric strengths into a beneficial service. It let me give in and amplify my baser instincts while 'protecting' humanity. If I could no longer be a man, I could at least be a 'good' vampire. Years passed, and rapists, murderers, and villains met their ends at my hands. Their sinful blood gave me a vigor Carlisle's animals lacked, and the lives I saved from the ones I took justified my useless existence."

Edward's already contorted body sunk into himself as he continued, but he couldn't bring himself to lose contact with my body in some way.

"Yet this wasn't the life affirming change I was seeking. The blood was rich and the thrill high. It resounded with my lackluster moral conviction purporting vigilantism. Perhaps statistically I saved lives by taking lives, but in the end it was merely self-indulgence. It inflamed my residual arrogance and pride, by letting me play God. I could hear their thoughts and smell their nefariousness; see their sins written in stone on their souls, and their unceasing intent to sin again. I was more thorough than any judge, jury, or executioner, but there was no balance of power. I allowed myself to be deluded that I wielded Lady Justice's sword, but my motives were tainted and my non-existent soul too filthy for her purity. This was not a purpose but a thinly veiled excuse to ease my savage thirst."

I had no idea how to comfort him outside of the way I did last night. So I sunk my hands into his hair, and just rubbed his head as this agonizing tale went on.

"Succumbing to my failings, I returned, prostrating myself before Carlisle and Esme, forever humbled by the deaths caused by my hubris. They didn't just accept me, but celebrated my prodigal return. Esme clasped me to her chest, kneeling on the floor with me, and rocked me as she did her lost son, while I supplicated them to forgive my transgressions. I confessed every life I took, not moving from her embrace or shifting from Carlisle's hands on my shoulders. I was not a sinner purging my guilt, but rather a convicted man, reciting his crimes. By having them hear and know them, I would never be able to ignore it, for those names would eternally echo in their heads when they thought of me. Carlisle's faith in his God, and in me, never once wavered, he merely tried to console me, saying that even God employed an Angel of Death. He didn't understand it didn't count if you needed those deaths to sustain you, or that you killed in order to find yourself. After that night, we never spoke of it again, nor was it ever whispered in either of their thoughts. They did not hear those names when they looked upon my face, only that their beloved son had returned. I wasn't worthy of their acceptance or love but greedily I horded it inside of myself. I stridently stuck to the animal regimen, and as our family grew so did my will and determination to never stray. The scents would call to me and the venom would flow, but that look of euphoria and solace as Carlisle opened his door to find that I had returned was one of the two great changes in my life. From then on it was my mission to be the best defanged vampire Son of Carlisle that I could be."

It did not escape me, as he paused in his tale, that I had known him for nearly two years and never once suspected he felt this way. I thought of him as perfect for want of an adjective to adequately describe him, but I lacked the insight to understand that it was an overwhelming drive inside him. That he struggled with the image and thought so little of himself he tried to define himself by it. He was revealing his soft underbelly to me; whether in an effort to drive me away or his subtle way of asking for acceptance, I could not know. I took the hands he considered still spotted with stains long ago washed away, and let him continue.

"Years passed, and while the guilt didn't disappear, the immortal brain forces itself to compartmentalize. I never forgot the lives I took or the reason why I did, but with time, and indubitably with the presence of my siblings, it eased its way into a disdain-flavored ambivalence towards this life and myself. I floated through the decades, in and out of schools, through history and fashions. Wars began and ended, society marched forward, and my antiquated values more or less died. After the first quarter century at the age of 17, resistance against the times became futile. So I changed with them, embraced and rejected the fads of the times. Fortunately with the passing of time came an acceptance and acknowledgment of this vegetarian lifestyle. I saw that instead of hindering our vampiric nature, it forced us to revere life. I saw my family members keep an edge of their humanity through the love of their spouses, and one another because they had not catered to the beasts within. Yet with the last twenty years or so, that pride in them was replaced with my own melancholy. They each had this intrinsic intimacy and support with their mates, that I was excluded from, but forced to read in their minds from afar. I don't know that I was aware of it at the time, but I yearned to have that as my own. To be one with another, and feel that fleeting hint of humanity."

I ached with the loneliness he was expressing, wishing that I could have been born decades earlier. I would have stood beside him and loved him so hard that he never had a moment of emptiness in his long life.

"There I was, sullen and stubbornly determined to be complete in myself, when you walked, stumbled, fell, crashed, and slid into my existence. This wisp of a girl who smelled divinely devilish irreversibly altered me, splitting my essence in half. The predator and the man, both of which coveted and hungered for you; loved you endlessly and hopelessly. Two sides of a coin that could never be separated. You brought out the man, dead and forgotten, and all that he yearns and emotes. Everything that I am wishes I could be just a man. I have tried, futilely, to be that for you. To hold you and kiss you, to love and to cherish you. And I do. But everything is tinged in fear of myself. I cannot love you with abandon or keep you safe. I cannot give to you the things a man gives a woman- a partner, a life, a child. All I can do is take from you. Take your life and your love, take you away from your family and friends, from your unborn children and the man who can love you as you are."

His hands never left mine, minutely tightening as his voice hollowed, for once looking to me for strength.

"You say you see the man in a way you never have before, but you cannot have one without the burden of the beast. I will never be worthy of you, I have always known that, and perhaps now more than ever. I have falsely taken your love and acceptance under the guise of creature that doesn't exist. As hard as I have tried, this dichotomy lives inside me, man and beast, power and weakness, love and hate. I unfairly asked you to keep me last night, I meant it, with every fiber of my being. But you have a choice to make, and it's not right to saddle you with a flawed and imperfect being, covered and cursed with blood."

A thousand thoughts rushed through my mind, struggling to find an adequate response to him, other than throwing myself at him and snuggling him like a teddy-bear. Instead I settled with depositing myself unceremoniously into his lap, straddling his legs, and gripping his head resting underneath my chin. I resolved, as we connected ourselves, that I would finally find the words that always eluded me to explain myself, and my love to him.

"Edward, as I said last night, that choice doesn't exist. It was made that first day in Biology. You are my Alpha and Omega, and nothing in between counts. You have no reason to trust me and I will never begrudge you that. I came here yesterday only with the intent of proving to you once and for all how much I love you. I don't have a game plan or even much of a clue of how to do that, besides smothering you with love. Yes, I cared for you like a man, because you are, but don't forget that it was your venom, and not your blood I was sopping up. That I watched you wounds miraculously seal themselves together in a way no human's ever could. I excused myself so you could replenish your strength with blood. All of this after I had just finished watching you behead and burn another creature to protect me. I am eternally grateful that you shared your past with me, but I am fully aware of your vampire side. My doubts were never because of you, they were my weaknesses and insecurities whispering my unworthiness in my ear, and elevating my vision of your perfection. I was too wrapped up and blinded by my own lack of self-worth that I didn't see you grappling to be 'perfect' for me, to shape yourself into what you thought I wanted. I hate that. I would hate myself and my immaturity that did this to you, if that same me wasn't who you fell in love with."

Never a day would pass that I wouldn't thank every star above that he saw something in me to love.

"Now is not the time for me to burden you with my issues, but soon enough I will tell them to you, because you trusted me enough to share yours. But Edward, we are so similar. I can't believe I never noticed it, but we're both just two insecure people, struggling to be enough for the one we love. If there is one thing yesterday proved to me, it was that your love and devotion to me was unquestionable and unshakable. At my worst you still protected and didn't give up on me. With that I realized, that regardless of everything I find lacking in myself, there is something in me that the person whom I respect, and admire the most; the man who is my closest friend, confidant and every wish come true, finds me worth loving. And while I don't understand why you do, I think it's fair to say that your words and actions have proven that I fulfill that same role for you."

I took a shaky breath, searching not my brain, but my heart for the words to fill the void inside him.

"My darling, there is not one millimeter of you that I don't love and adore. From the tips of your unruly hair to the depths of your golden soul, desperately trying to be good and true. Your strength is my safeguard in my danger wrought world. I promise to always respect it, but I will never fear it, or you. This past day has unilaterally proven that even in the worst circumstances and my foolish temptation on your lips; when all your boundaries are down, you are incapable of harming me. I recognize your base need to be the man you were raised to be. To fill me with child and age beside me. I know that you damn your immortality for that, but I don't. I look at it as a blessed gift that someone saw fit to let me keep you forever. I am greedy, I don't want you for sixty-seventy years. I want centuries and millenniums with you. I am willing to sacrifice children for that. Would I cherish your child? Yes, I would love it 'til the end of the world and back. But I would because it was ours, not mine. I am complete with you."

The only child I would ever want would be Edward's. I had spent my life raising my mother and the last five months with a pack of rowdy boys; I was quite over child raising, actually. I wanted nothing more than to spend eternity with just Edward, now all I had to do was convince him he was allowed to want that as well.

"So now I ask you to just let it be, and be mine. Horde my love inside you and let it be your foundation. What is guilt and confusion when the person you love the most, loves you back? Take whatever it is that you see good in me, and let the knowledge that I love you not as a vampire or as a man, but as My Edward ease your pain. Nevermore are you a murderer or soulless; are you immortal and I mortal. All the ways we qualify ourselves is meaningless. _We belong to each other_. There is nothing above or below stronger than that."

Before I had even finished speaking he reached for me. Pulled me into him and clasped my face between his shaking indestructible hands. His nose and cheeks brushed against my own, inscribing them with his touch. Lips delicately followed, emblazoning my skin until they reached my mouth. With infinite tenderness, blinding love, and whispers of an eternal promise, he reclaimed me. We tasted of sadness and joy, of betrayal and forgiveness, of life and death, of predator and prey. All our dualities and differences met as one as we kissed. The spectrum curved into an eternal ring around us. Round and round it went, with no beginning or end, a never ceasing circle of us.

Centuries passed before we pulled back far enough for even a breath to squeeze between us.

"Yours?" he asked.

"Mine. As I am Yours." I vowed.

A growl emanated deep inside him mixing with his incandescent elation as his lips started wandering again.

"All. Fucking. Mine."

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References therein, in order:

"Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles

To My Dear and Loving Husband- poem by Anne Bradstreet

Niccolo Machiavelli's political theory...can be found in Discourses, The Prince, and most of his plays.

The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

"Foundation" by Kate Nash

Lamb and Tyger, Tyger both by William Blake

Tears, Idle Tears poem by Lord Tennyson

"Endlessly" by Muse

"Macbeth" William Shakespeare

"Let it Be" by The Beatles

Nevermore poem by Edgar Allen Poe

Please review and tell me what you liked and didn't like. What you thought of Edward's back story, and how these two are slowly coming together.

and FYI, this is certainly not the end of this tale. :)


	5. Ties

**A/N:**

**General FYI, I took another pass on chapter four and broke up the dialogue a bit to make it flow better. Take a look if you're interested.**

**A huge thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing, all your suggestions are making me a better writer!**

**Much love to my sister again for her snarky assistance.**

**Once again: Not Mine.**

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"Why has 'Love and Happiness,' been blaring through the house on repeat?"

I was on my way to the kitchen to replenish my sandwich stock, when I came across the source of the music we'd been hearing. Judging from the song pouring out from his study, it would appear Jasper's a soul man.

Edward had left to go hunting moments earlier, unfortunately separating our lips in the process. We'd more or less been making out. Such a thought was so foreign to me it was hard to accurately define it. It was neither so casual or heavy for such a plebeian term, but was so normal it couldn't be discounted. The past 24 hours had frayed our tattered control and boundaries to the point that we couldn't stay away from each other. We teased and kissed, clasped and touched, took and gave; just needing a respite from the intensity.

Though arguably it was replaced with a different kind of tension....

But more than anything it had been a reunion and a claiming. After hearing Edward's heart wrenching tale, my actions with Jake were made even more reprehensible. I had hurt him in every facet; his manhood, his vampire nature, and his pride. The sheer fact that Edward had sworn twice in one day, more than he ever had in two years, only proved how low his defenses were. His filter and walls were nearly nonexistent. I hated that I had done that to him, but I could only hope with everything I am, that it would strengthen our relationship. We were finally laying everything out before the other, ignoring all the danger and peril our lives seem to stay in, and focusing on who we were.

And mmm were we tasty...

Last night and this morning introduced a level of intimacy between us that had never existed. We had been closer in every element. We were touching, kissing, and speaking freely. Edward's control was effectively shot, but it didn't matter because there was a level of trust established in its exit. He was giving all of himself; both man and beast, gentleman and randy teenager; everything that made him Edward.

And I would _always_ take Edward...

But for the first time it looked like he would finally allow himself to have me, in all the ways he wanted. I had every intention of giving that to him, right after I manned up and confessed my own issues to him....and the Jake debacle....and talked about that whole marriage thing....and being changed....

Well apparently the taking would have to be delayed.

But really, he couldn't be done with the whole reclaiming bit right? Jake had been sloberring and clawing all over me. I bet Rose would even go so far as to say he was humping my leg. Edward still had a lot of territory to re-annex in order to work on rebuilding his shattered pride...

God Edward says "fuck," twice and I turn into a gibbering mass of hormonal goo, and lose all focus on reestablishing our relationship.

Apparently I wasn't the only one to realize this.

"It's on because I'm this family's version of Prozac, and Alice, shall we say, took away my prescription pad."

I blinked in confusion in the doorway of his study. Being Jasper he figured it out and elaborated.

"Alice came to find and tell me Edward was on the mend, and it was safe to come home. But the trip back came with what you might call stern advice. Under no circumstances was I to use my gifts to influence y'all. She kind of read me the riot act about you and Edward needing your privacy without our 'pesky meddling'. It went on with some finger shaking and absolute righteousness that your relationship was too crowded and everyone needed to butt out. By the time we got home, spending more time with newborns sounded like a far more rousing idea."

Something was still amiss here.

"That doesn't explain the Al Green."

I rarely spoke to Jasper, and when I did he always looked uncomfortable, so the sheepish expression on his face was certainly a new experience.

"Just because I can't manipulate your feelings, doesn't mean I can't encourage you all in the right direction through the soulful styling of Mr. Green. Think of it as a Hallmark sentiment in song form. I figured since you, me, and paper are mortal enemies, a card wasn't the best way to approach the situation."

"So you've been subjecting the whole house to the same song for the past few hours in order to thwart your wife, and sen, 'Hugs and kisses to us, Love,Jasper?'"

"If the last hour is any indication I should've switched to Gregorian Chants considering the sex bomb you all dropped on the house with your groping."

The blinking was back at the words "sex bomb" coming from Jasper's mouth. Are all the Cullen's gloves off now? At this point I half expected a naked Carlisle to run streaking through the house.

Jasper started laughing, having felt my befuddlement.

I went in to his room and plopped in a leather chair.

"I really don't know you at all do I?"

"Not so much, no. Edward has kept all of us, and particularly himself, on a very short leash with you. Though it's rather apparent the chains have come off, judging by his language and my need to adminster a Valium to myself to ignore the lust storm you two stirred up."

Keen embarrassment warred with a sick kind of pride at knowing the whole house heard Edward and I's make-up/out time. I was horrified that something so private was public knowledge in the family, but I couldn't help but savor they all knew how much we loved each other. Then again, for all of Emmett's soon-to-be-had teasing, it wasn't as if we had done anything more scandalous than the average 10th grader. At least we'd finally moved out of eighth grade spin-the-bottle esque kisses.

I mentally berated myself for that still not being the point. I may have been able to mature enough to have a big-girl talk with Edward, but it appeared I couldn't for the life of me get my mind out of the gutter.

"Ignoring your leash and chain insinuations that I would have expected from Emmett; I will say that things are changing. We're definitely on track to having a healthier relationship."

My statement was meant with a tidal wave of amusement from Jasper.

"I'm sorry, but what part of your relationship is the healthy part? The obsessive-near-fatal love? The suicidal and martyr tendencies? The raging insecurities you both hide from the other? Or is it the part in which you want to die to be with him and he fights against killing you every second of the day? Half the time I'm around you I don't know whether to pull out the Freud or sign you all up for some quality Dr. Phil time. I love you both dearly, but there's not a single iota of your relationship that could be defined as normal or healthy."

I was starting to feel some of Alice's righteous indignation. And it was directed solely at the only Cullen who had actively tried to eat me in the past. Who had also killed enough humans to give Edward's confession a single "Hail Mary" pass.

"Listen Dr. Strangelove.."

Unfortunately he decided to cut me off, having read my intention to ream him all over my face.

"Bella, I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear. Despite the smells you give off, the strength and intensity of your feelings can make me forget. You yet to have the same perception on things that the rest of us do. For all of Edward's intentions to hide our nature from you in the past, we are vampires. Which intrinsically makes us fall a few feet away from the normal tree. The same applies to our emotions and relationships. It seems you have finally realized the extent of how much things are amplified for us over the past day, correct?"

I nodded apprehensively.

"I caught bits of your conversation this morning, and heard Edward explaining the duality of having our humanity within the confines of immortality. He and I have spent decades theorizing on our dichotomies, but only recently has Edward experienced it. He used to remain bound and ambivalent in order to keep himself in check. Then as he said, you came ito his life, and he's been frantically trying to balance the two sides, and more often than not, overcorrecting in the process."

"Like leaving because I crashed my own party and you got snack happy?"

"Essentially. And to answer your unasked question, since neither you nor Edward hold a grudge against me for it, and I've already done what I can to make it up to my brother, I don't see the sense in dwelling on the issue. Frankly we live too long to not bury the hatchet. Especially with you around, you'd be tripping over it every ten minutes."

I was kind of wondering when Jasper stopped being a stick in the mud or rather why he'd always pretended to be one around me. His marriage to Alice was finally making starting to make sense.

"I digress, the point is that even for all the death on Edward's hands, it's a drop in the eternal bucket next to mine. In my heyday I never even attempted to distinguish the innocent from the guilty, because they were all cattle to me. That wore off in time, primarily because most people can't feel their hamburger's fear and despair rolling off of them. My gifts helped me regain pieces of my humanity, Alice filled in the bulk of it, and Carlisle's lifestyle provided a way for me to keep it. That's what Edward is unable to grasp. When we feed off of humans, we can give over almost exclusively to our vampire nature, and maybe just be one face of the coin. But living as a family, with our spouses, and only drinking from animals, unites both sides. Vampire and man; never exclusively one or the other, but always both. "

"So we've been in a constant holding pattern, because he thought I could only love half of his personality."

"Every time you thought he was rejecting you, he was protecting you from himself. In all the years I have known him, never once has he trusted or believed in himself. Hence all the overcompensation. Despite his mood swings, he doesn't have split personality disorder, and his innane attempts to separate himself only make the situation worse. As I said, we are neither one or the other, but both. He's got to come to terms with that."

"I'm still at a loss as to what exactly your point is though. Since you were eavesdropping, you know that's what we talked about this morning, and we are on the path to being a healthy couple. We're practically in do-it-yourself couples therapy."

I already knew these things about Edward. We were filling in the holes of our insecurities with each other's love. We had a game plan, and Dr. Downer was trying to poke holes in our happy balloon.

"I thought with the way you've been handling this situation you'd grown out of your debilitating density. You're dating a vampire and I've eaten sloths with better survival instincts than yours. You can't be aiming at healthy, because it's never going to happen. We exist in the extremes. When we love it has a level of obsession and a definite edge of possession to it. With another vampire it's fine, because they're the same way. But you two are cross breeding and there will always be inequalities. You took a crooked left turn at normal a while back."

Edward's earlier exclamation resonated through my head. We'd gone from turn of the century decorum to a growling territory marking make-out session.

"In other words you don't want me to get too ambitious?"

"If you're aim for normal you're going to set yourself up for failure. I've spent enough time around you to recognize that nearly every one of your innanities springs from a desire to be equal with Edward. That day will come eventually, but for now, you've got to shoot for balance. You two are see-sawing on that line, but it could easily overbalance in the wrong direction. Edward's letting up on his rigid control and for the first time just being. That doesn't mean you have to take up the slack, and become the one to overcompensate. I know how guilty you feel, but if you give in to it, he'll cave too."

"We're not going to go back to walking on eggshells, Jasper. That's all we've been doing since you guys came back; studiously avoiding all mention of past transgressions in fear of the other's reaction. We can't go on like that. Hell, if either of us had said something earlier, all the crap that's gone down would never have happened."

"Honey, I'm a strategist; I never advocate pussyfooting around."

He stood up from his desk and went over to his stereo.

"Be honest and be realistic. Don't aim too high and don't give in to the doom and gloom."

He turned up the stereo and drowned out any chance of conversation as the chorus kicked in.

"You be good to me, I'll be good to you. We'll be together, yeah, we'll see each other. Walk away with victory."

He turned it down again and plopped into the chair.

"So the great Cullen scholar is just purporting a little Love and Happiness?"

"At the end of the day, that's all there is."

I rose and went to leave, and continue on my quest for food. When I reached the door I turned back to him.

"You had a little too much fun in the 60's, didn't you Jasper?"

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I thought about my confusing and random conversation with Jasper while I raided the Cullen kitchen. Passing the prime rib, salmon, and Beluga caviar by, I made a grab for the bacon and eggs. I didn't know if the selection of food was designed to spoil me rotten or fatten me up for dinner. Probably depended on who had done the shopping.

Jasper had made a fairly legitimate point, albeit one I couldn't particularly answer. I was quite literally flying by the seat of my pants and taking everything as it came. I didn't have any over-arching plans for us outside of making things right again. But he was correct, and that I could easily take that too far and become the overcompensating one in the relationship. Which was something I had little desire to do. I was fine with Edward wearing the pants, and while I had no doubt he had great legs, I still didn't want to see him in a skirt. We both needed to have a say in our future, and the time for negotiations and begging had passed. I needed a plan.

While brunch cooked and wafted noxious fumes into the noses of all the vampires present, I weighed the wants and needs of Edward and I. We had a while to go before we could face what would come in the future, but for the first time I wanted a contingency plan. One based on a desire for some love and happiness and not fear and fragility. It was reckless and lacked a safety net, but if nothing else, it showed once and for all I was putting all my eggs in Edward's basket. It would take work and a lot of help, but I had short friends in high places.

"Alice? Can you pop down here real quick?"

A forkful of eggs later, she appeared with a look of giddy anticipation on her face.

"I did't look! I swear! But you're going to ask me to and lift this ridiculous request for privacy, right?"

My head shook at the thought of joining this family of three voyeurs and two exhibitionists. I promptly kissed away all my private proclivities then and there.

"Give me a second to form it all in my head. I'll try to be as specific as possible, and where I'm not, feel free to do whatever you want. I just have a few basic guidelines that are extremely important, the rest I don't care about."

I formed the picture in my head of what I wanted, who should be included, and when I wanted it done, trying to pay particular attention to the limitations. Then I resolved myself to making it a reality.

Alice's eyes widened and something akin to relief washed over her face. It certainly wasn't the response I had been expecting. More like exuberance and euphoria. Instead she pulled me out of my chair and hugged me to her.

"Thank you Bella, for including me in this. I've never before felt so useless, and not being able to sneak a peek and wave my magic wand to make it all better kills me. I've inserted myself, as well as let you both drag me into the middle of your relationship. And because I can't stand not being involved I went along with it. Now my closest brother and best friend are hurting, and there's nothing for me to do. I know it's not about me, but doing this for you is exactly what I need. Probably what Jasper does too, or I'll end up harraunging him to Alaska and back in the mean time."

I squeezed her unsqueezable body tightly before letting go and looking down at her.

"We never met to exclude you Alice, and I'm sorry if you felt that way."

"No! I didn't mean it that way, I know I'm meddlesome, and somebody has to tell me no sometimes. I respect that. I only wanted to thank you for letting me do this for you and Edward. I don't do sadness that well...I mean geeze, I married a mood-enhancing drug of a husband, that should give you some ideas. But you guys mean so much to me, and I need to show that somehow. You're giving me that opportunity."

"Please know that neither of us has ever doubted how much you care for us, and I hope you know how much we both love you. I already told you we wouldn't be Edward and Bella without you."

She pulled back and giggled.

"We. We. We. When did you two become the Monarchy? Is shy little Bella now the couple spokesperson?"

Being an idiot, I playfully shoved her and landed on my own rear.

"Yes. Jasper informed _us_ that _we_ were already too messed up for even Freud, so _we_ figure _we've_ hit just the right level of dysfunction for _us_ to finally be comfortable in _ourselves_."

"For the love of the OED, stop. I have a few English degrees interspersed with my Vogue obsessions, and your bastardization of personal pronouns is making me itch to grab a red pen and cross you out entirely."

"Save your red pen for color coordinating our plans. Besides your outfit is far too scenester for the teacher routine."

There goes the hands on the hips. I wonder if I could get a good finger shake out of her.

"Bella Swan, do you even know what a scenester is?"

"Nope. I saw it on the cover of one of your magazines."

"I should educate you, and wardrobe your soiree in that fashion. I've no doubt you'd enjoy seeing Edward in ripped skinny jeans and eyeliner."

Note to self: never try to outwit a vampire. Your boyfriend ends up wearing more make-up than you do.

"Good luck stuffing my husband into a pair."

Rose wandered in to join us and send horrifying mental images my way.

"How do you even know he'll be a part of it?"

She scoffed as she lowered herself into the chair beside me.

"Oh to be young and naive, and not have decades of Cullen experiences haunting your psyche."

Alice jumped in, knowing Rose would keep up the taunting for hours if allowed.

"What the Harpy means, is if you dig for centuries inside her shriveled heart you'll see that she's acknowleding you as family. And come hell, high water, or apocalypses, we operate as a unit, and in her own perverse way, she's recognizing that you don't signify the end of life as we know it by excluding any of us."

Time to see how far I could push this. I reached across the table to Rose to hug her.

"Aww, Rose, does this mean you'll teach me about boys and let me borrow your car?"

"First of all, you'd have to know how to drive my car, _Sis_. Learn how to shift 0 to 60 in point three seconds and maybe we'll talk about putting you in a Prius."

Emmett barreled through the door, scenting the blood in the air.

"Rosie doesn't know shit about boys, but she does know baseball. Maybe she can teach you how to get on first with the Repressed One upstairs."

As the squabbling continued, a foreign feeling crept its way through me. It was so out of place I half expected it to have originated with Jasper, but with his wife's presence, I doubted it. Unabashed contentment was slowly filling up inside me. Something I had not experienced since before my 18th birthday. Even with Edward's return, I lived in a constant state of panic any time he left my sight. I missed him right now, but I wasn't falling apart without him. It was ludicrous to even suggest it was because I didn't need him. Instead it was because I had nothing to fret over. For as surely as the sun would rise, so too would Edward come back to me. And I think he finally knew I would always be waiting for him.

Allowing the contentment to wash over me, I refocused on the conversation. Edward and I belonged to each other, but we were tied to our perhaps too close family. With mix feelings of resignation and rightness, I threw a shot back at my siblings.

"You mean Jasper didn't share our sex bomb with the rest of you?"

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**Chapter Notes:**

_Not much in the way of references in this chapter, besides the ever present theme Love and Happiness_

_Though if you really want to push it, I suppose you could take the last line from the Tom Jones song of the same name._

_OED- Oxford English Dictionary_

Now I realize you all probably wanted some more E/B craziness, but we needed a breather, and once again, Bella needed time to process everything that went down in the last two. Plus let's face it, Take-Out Coyote could only fulfill Edward so much. And while this is an E/B story, Bella's perspective on the whole family were off kilter. Now we're seeing her slowly becoming not just Edward's girlfriend, but a Cullen sibling in her own right. It's all about seeing clearly and becoming a stronger person.

Please review and let me know what you think about the Cullen interactions, what you think she and Alice were planning, and all in all what you liked and didn't.


	6. Trust

**Author's Note: Still not mine.**

**Thanks again for all of your reviews, I promise to respond to them all now that chapter six is up. I figured you all would rather read it, than my comments.**

**Much love to my Asshat sister for taking the time out of her busy schedule to squeeze in a read through.**

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He was home.

Stepping out of the shower, I was met with yet another set of Edward's fake bedtime clothes. A soft t-shirt and drawstring pants had replaced my own outfit. Their presence could only mean that he had returned from hunting. If he had picked anything out besides his own baggy clothes for me I would fear he'd finally fallen prey to Alice's fashion indoctrination. But these, I thought smiling, signified something quite different. He wanted to keep me in his clothes. Translation: over thinking Edward hadn't made a comeback while hunting.

"You're such an enabler Edward. If you keep dressing me like your personal hobo, our sisters are going to disown us."

I walked into our room to greet the golden-eyed sight lounging on the bed. Unable to resist, I pounced on him, which beget a houseful of disbelieving snorts, chuckles, and technique pointers from Emmett. Edward merely opened his arms to catch me.

Nibbling into my strategically placed neck, he lifted me closer to him. We embraced in silence, reveling in his return. I had been all right without him, but eighteen hours was stretching things after our still fresh, near misses.

"I hadn't intended to be away for that long, but with the severity of my venom loss, it took quite a bit to quench my thirst. I'm not quite sure the mountain lion population of California will ever be the same again."

Not bothering to move myself I mumbled into the vague vicinity of his left cheekbone,

"Regaining your strength was more important. As was spending some time with Carlisle and Esme. I think we scared the hell out of them and they needed to reconnect with you."

His lips fell away from my shoulder and he mildly stiffened. Surprised, I sat up to look at him.

Uh oh, all the signs were there.

Step One: Edward musses up his hair.

Rather unnecessarily I thought, since I'd already thoroughly done so myself.

Step Two: The eyes close.

Oh Lord, here it comes.

Step Three: The nose pinch.

Oh yeah. Something was up. If it were really bad evasive techniques would rapidly follow.

"Spill it. Now. Or I'll traumatize with you with my conversation with Jasper yesterday."

The cocky smirk told me he already knew. Damn.

"You see, the thing is, I tried...but she just wouldn't listen. You could say she's a bit perturbed. Her relief at my being healed didn't last nearly as long as I had hoped."

I laid on top of him, with my arms crossed on his chest, and my chin resting on his. Let him dodge me now.

"Esme is going on a mild rampage about us right now. Apparently I used up my lone self-sacrificing get-out-of-jail-free card for this century when we were in Italy."

He trailed off and focused intently on my left earlobe. If he had been five he would've been shuffling his feet and staring at his shoelaces with a pout on those lips.

"You said 'us'. Elaborate Edward. And don't shield me. That's what got you in trouble with her in the first place."

Well his attention was decidedly focused on me now, with a rather impressive glare added into the mix.

"Don't start a conversation you're not ready to have Isabella. Even after gorging myself I can still taste your blood on my lips. Shall we talk about why I was shielding you?"

Sighing, I eased back from the pit of vipers that was that topic.

"Why don't we focus on Esme for now and not on the minor detail that I might be certifiably nuts."

"Might be?"

Sensing my lack of a response, he moved on.

"Since you insist on knowing, she seems to think it's within her prerogative to tell me what I should or shouldn't do in regards to our relationship."

"She doesn't want you to take me back?"

Growling he flipped me over until he was hovering inches above me.

"You insinuate that I had let you go. Something I did not, nor will ever do. You are mine until the day you say otherwise."

Stroking his cheek, I attempted to soothe him.

"A day that will never come. But she's right. Don't take it easy on me. I don't deserve it."

He pressed his forehead against mine, and breathed deeply.

"I don't want to deal with all of this. I want to lay here, wrapped up in you, and ignore the world caving in on us."

"Edward..."

"I'm fully aware how irresponsible that would be, though it doesn't lessen the desire in the slightest."

Raising his eyes to mine he continued.

"We keep hurting each other, each time more than the last, and it cannon continue. It destroys me to see you hurt, whether by my actions or the guilt of your own. Therefore we will prevail and discuss this like grown-ups."

"I can't hurt you anymore either. This is important, but let's not do it here. A houseful of vampires hardly seems the place to spill my guts after all."

Rolling to the side of me, he lightly laughed at my sick humor.

"Well Mademoiselle Morbid, where do you propose we go? The meadow?"

"NO!"

That came out slightly more forceful than I had intended, but I couldn't bear to defile our spot with the ugliness that was to come.

"It's just that this talk is going to suck. I'm going to get over-emotional, and what I have to say is going to be difficult for you to hear. I don't want to go anywhere we've been before, because I don't want to taint those memories."

Understanding lit his eyes, as he pulled me to my feet.

"Let's go for a drive then, it's probably for the best that I'll have my hands preoccupied anyways. It also serves as an escape from Esme. You've never really explored much of the Olympic Peninsula have you?"

Unless you count the places an ancient treaty forbids him from entering, then no. I shook my head in response, deciding not to mention the reservation at this point.

"We'll take the Scenic Byway. It'll keep us moving and unable to ruin anyone place. The arresting scenery might divert you from the unpleasantness."

I agreed on the condition that we not take the Volvo. All our first memories revolved around that stupid car and I wouldn't ruin that.

Edward stared at me in disbelief.

"You throw a fit about my driving and yet you're advocating we take one of the cars that reach over 200 mph_ before_ Rose tinkers with them?"

"I already associate your Aston Martin with high heels. It doesn't get much worse than that."

I wasn't quite sure how the scenery was supposed to comfort me, seeing how we passed it at warp speed. I would have to suffice with the internal view of Edward's shamelessly giddy face as he opened up his car on the deathly winding roads. If I had realized this car gave him such a thrill I would have demanded we take it daily. He never radiated such carefree joy in our day-to-day life.

We whipped towards Port Angeles with nothing but the roar of the engine between us. Neither of us seemed to know where to begin, and the farther we traversed from home, the heavier the gap between us grew. Surprisingly, Edward broke first.

"When we spoke yesterday, and I laid the sick machinations of my psyche into your lap, you said you had insecurities as well. I should have asked you about them then, and not so selfishly unloaded on you."

Figures he would find some way to blame himself for me being a coward.

"Please don't. You know as well as I do the importance of talking about that, and because of it I have never felt closer to you."

"Then pray tell, why won't you grant me the same courtesy to get inside you?"

My first blush of the past three days blazed across my face and down my neck.

"Not once in the memories of their time with you, did our siblings recall seeing you blush. Nor did you during any of our recent activities. So why are you suddenly embarrassed?"

It was far easier to be confident when I could focus on Edward or the rest of the Cullens.

"I don't like talking about myself, you know that. Especially when what I have to say is imperative to the future of our relationship. Now I have to shine the light on everything that's wrong with me that almost destroyed us. I'm a little bit shy about it."

"Sweet Girl, you didn't nearly destroy us. Don't take the world on your shoulders."

The irony of that was certainly not lost on me.

"Edward, you became a catatonic vampire and were nearly torn apart because of me. I think it's safe to say we were on the path of mutually assured self- destruction."

"Well I wouldn't be M.A.S.D' if I knew what you were thinking, so speak up my Little Coward."

It was in times like these I wish I could growl.

"I don't really know where to start. I guess right now I'm petrified of going back to Old Bella. I feel like one of Jasper's dualities. A myriad of old and new, immature and mature, selfish and selfless Bellas. Being the old me caused you to fall in love with me, but it also brought us to this place."

"You forget I have a particular soft spot for all faces of Bella though."

I could tell he was holding himself back from saying more. As I had yesterday, his ever tightening grip on the wheel showed how difficult it was for him to not disregard my issues as being absurd. Neither of us would ever see the other as we saw ourselves. But if I could get this out, we would at least understand it.

"I know, just as I'm quite keen on all Edward's. But I don't want to be that way, in the same way that you don't want to be a monster. That Jasper doesn't want to have to be a soldier anymore. Or how Alice can't bear to be sad. "

"That's probably for the best. You rather lack the size requirements to be a Sad Monster Soldier. I'm not sure you would scare anyone."

I glared at him and lamely snarled.

"Bite me, Edward."

A blink of an eye, or ten miles later at this speed, his mouth was millimeters from my ear.

A resounding chomp echoed throughout the car.

I threw my head back and laughed, letting the awkward tension seep out of me. There was nothing else he could have done to assure me that no matter what I confessed things were going to be all right.

"Did you just condone biting humor?"

A toothy grin was my only response, signifying this freer side of Edward was permanent. With that I was comfortable enough to continue. He would hear me and not jump to preposterous conclusions that all revolved around self-recrimination.

"What is it about the Old Bella that makes you so anxious?"

A relieved smile crossed my face. He was going to walk me through this.

"I suppose it's how utterly wrong I was about nearly everything. I thought of you as this perfect god-like being who was superior to me in every way. I never once fathomed that you had any weaknesses or fears, and because of that I routinely made all of them come true. I hate what I did to you."

He struggled for a moment before prompting me to elaborate.

"What made you think we were so different?"

"Besides the vampire and human parts? Everything. You already know how gloriously beautiful you are, and then there's me standing besides you, plain as day even by human standards. It's particularly strange for me, seeing that I'd never really cared about looks before, until there was this glaring disparity before me. And I let that define you and our relationship. I would never be your equal."

I didn't want to look at him as I spoke about this, it would make it all the more difficult.

"Bella I don't want to fill you with platitudes, but please tell me you at least know that is the farthest thing from my mind when I look at you?"

"I can see that now. Through your eyes I can feel beautiful and worthwhile. After all, when the handsomest man you've ever seen tells you how ravishing you are, it's hard to refute him."

His anticipatory breath was released in a flourish.

"Is that why you won't let me give you things, because you feel that we're unequal?"

"Essentially. It's just another gap between us. You're richer than Midas, and I come from a dinky town's Police Chief's salary, and a flighty mother who occasionally substitute teaches. Hell all of my worldly riches are stuffed into a sock, and you've got offshore accounts in fifty different names. How can I compete with that? What can I possibly give to you that you don't already have or couldn't buy for yourself? Absolutely nothing. I can't reciprocate Edward, and it kills me."

"Not to throw your words back into your own face, but you gave me you. And I don't think even after yesterday you quite grasp the enormity of that miracle. You ended eighty years of loneliness; you gave me a purpose in this life, and the one thing I never dared to even hope for: your love. Your blind acceptance and unfailing devotion are the greatest gifts I have ever received. Better than the box of mementos from my human life Carlisle saved for me, and even more meaningful than my first piano Esme bought for me to bring music back into my life. You gave me everything, Bella, when you gave me you."

I bit back the sniffles that threatened to overcome me at his words. Yesterday proved how unworthy he felt he was of me, and yet in that moment, I knew he would graciously accept any gift I chose to give him.

"Are you trying to say we're already even?"

He smiled and glanced at me as we spun around another hairpin curve.

"Now you're catching on. And in light of that, I want you to tell me why in the world you think this affected our relationship. Just because you got some asinine notion in your head that it's a bad thing for me to spoil you, or that you're not the most stunning creature in all the world, doesn't beget a tragic outcome."

"It's really a matter of how these things shaped my thinking. All I could see were our differences. You're intrinsically brilliant, whereas I have to study extensively; you're impossibly strong, and I incapacitate people with my clumsiness."

"I thought allowing our dissimilarity to drag us apart was my M.O., not yours."

"That's because it is. It wasn't separating us, but rather it was ultimately what led up to that disaster in the clearing a few days ago. If you were this Greek God, ethereal, and all things wise and powerful; my actions would have very little effect on you. It was impossible for me to see that while you're immortal, you still hurt, and worry, and to an extent bleed like the rest of us. I didn't think my stubborn refusal of your gifts upset you, or that you could be prone to jealousy. I was so caught up in my confidence in you I never knew you lacked confidence in yourself."

The car had slowed to the point I could make out the forests of pine and cedar trees enveloping us. We were cocooned in an eerie emerald light flittering in the darkened windows.

"Thus why when I refused to make love to you, you thought it was a lack of your own desirability. I presume it never occurred to you, that I am an eternally seventeen your old man, and a virgin at that. Not a solitary inch of my frozen body has ever been remiss of feeling a burning need for you."

His words formed a knot in my abdomen and the rampant spread of heat throughout my limbs.

"You might've said something besides some vague, "I am still a man, Bella."

"You embarrass so easily I never wanted to burden you with that knowledge. Not to mention you project every romantic literary hero's attributes onto me. Was I supposed to crush those fantasies because I'm a sexually frustrated teenage vampire?"

I wanted to respond maturely, but _Edward_ had just referred to himself as sexually frustrated, and all I wanted to do was leer at him and offer to scratch his itch if he scratched mine….

"So the moral of this story is that we suck at communication. And for the record, Mr. Darcy reeked of sexual repression."

He chuckled and took my hand in his, and rested it where I thought the gearshift should be. Needing a respite from this topic, I chose to ask him about it. The distraction was an immediate success as he went off on the Vanquish's ability for both manual and automatic shifting, and a rant about how the removal of the clutch and inclusion of the paddle shifter takes away the whole purpose of it. When he reached the point of complaining that the computer tries to tell him what gear it should be in and force his choice, I began to tune him out and focus on the scenery.

We had slowed enough that I could read the sign for the Cape Flattery Tribal Scenic Byway. It appeared we were on the Makah Indian Reservation, and I could only hope their ancestors were a bit less animalistic. The last thing we needed today were were-cats or the like deciding to interfere. It was a stunning view, but judging by the ambiguous greenness all around me, I knew that without the man beside me, I would be dramatically unenthusiastic.

Eventually Edward sensed my decoy ploy for what it was, and returned the conversation to the original topic.

"I cannot help but feel that there is something decidedly lacking from your explanation today. Perhaps something putrid and furry?"

I expected his face to register the tense anger I had only come to recognize in hindsight when he referred to Jake, but it was surprisingly calm. Deceptively so, actually.

"You noticed that, eh?"

I've matured, my ass.

"As I said earlier, all of these issues have only caused mild mishaps, none of which you would deem to have broken me. Not that I'm in concurrence with your description of that, but I think we both know these manifested into something, or rather someone else."

Before I could react, the car had halted in a covered nook off the side of the road. Only Edward would park an Aston Martin in the brush.

"If we're going to get into this, we need to do it somewhere we can both get some closure. "

He stepped out of the car and raced around to my side to help me out. As he had done so long ago on our first trip to the meadow, he threw my flannel-covered bottom onto his back and leaped into the trees at blinding speed. Only today I lacked the fear I had once felt, and embraced the adrenaline that rushed through me.

I hung on Edward's back, secure in the fact that he would never let me fall. Pressed closely to him, with my chin on his shoulder, I kept my eyes open and watched the world whir past us. For this moment we were free. Free from the pain we had caused and the fixing we had yet to do. Free of our obligations and responsibilities. Free to just be us.

Simultaneously, as he ran faster, we both began to laugh. It was manic and joyful, needy and liberating, desperation and relief. It was everything we needed before we faced the ghosts of our past.

On and on he ran. Dodging towering titans of cedar and pine as he continued upwards. It didn't even matter that I didn't know where we were going, or that I hated surprises. As long as Edward was with me, and we were finally going to get past this; I would dine in hell if need be.

Eventually the sound of pounding surf cut through vampire velocity enough for me to realize we were nearing the coast. Edward never slowed, and even though the light was beginning to brighten from the green glow that had encompassed us, I trusted him enough to not comment.

Abruptly the filtered light saturated my eyes and the churning water was hundreds of feet below me.

"You brought me to a cliff. Are you going to throw me over if I don't answer your questions?"

I didn't intend to sound so impertinent, but I was rapidly drowning in lingering fear from my last seaside escapade. Apparently despite my clumsiness, near death didn't sit well with me.

"Mmm, and waste all that luscious blood? I think not."

For some reason, his dark humor was what was required to calm me down. I sought control over my fear, and clung closer to him as I dared to take in our surroundings. We were at the precipice of what he would later tell me was the Juan de Fuca Straight. Normal people traversed tame trails to reach safe lookout points from some distance from the cliff we stood upon. Of course we ran at light speed and stopped quite literally on the tallest peek around us. Below the waves crashed into the sea caves and the protruding boulders. If everything about it didn't scream death to me, it would have been a glorious merging of nature.

"I might understand better why you brought me here if you would take about a hundred steps back from the edge."

Instead he sat down, with his feet hanging over and a girl shaped backpack holding him in a vice grip.

"If I had to hazard a guess, this will boil down to two key elements: a lack of perspective and an inability to trust. We're essentially sitting on the edge of the world; there's no clearer view around. Your life is also entirely in my hands. You have to come to the realization that I will_ always_ catch you."

"Damnit, Edward, I trust you. I always have, now move back."

"You didn't trust me not to leave you."

I sighed and closed my eyes against his neck.

"No, subconsciously I didn't."

"You didn't think you were enough for me. Even though you had your grand epiphany about my love for you."

"I know you love me, especially now. But none of this passed through my conscious mind, it was only after the fact that it became clear."

"And that applies to the mutt as well, I presume. Do you trust him more than me? He is after all the one who saved you from the effects of a cliff such as this."

"No, God, no. I guess it all comes back to the dichotomies again. He's immature and goofy, and completely different from you. It was the only reason I could be around him when you were gone. He brought out those aspects of my personality, and when you came back…I wanted you more than anything, but those differences were still there. With Jake, even when he was in the wolfy way, he was young and had flaws. I could relate to him in ways my lack of perspective never let me connect with you."

"I assume you're aware you're confirming every one of the fears I shared with you."

I kissed the arch of his neck as he stared at the water below us.

"I know. I wish you didn't need to hear this. I wish I could bottle up my past indiscretions and shatter them on those rocks. I wish I could do something other than constantly hurt you."

"You can't fix what's not broken. We had to get here before we could ever move forward. Go on, I promise I'm a big enough boy to take it."

In a faint whisper I proceeded, half hoping his hearing would fail him.

"He became my safety net. When you were gone and I had no way of knowing you'd return, he kept me afloat, and I was indebted to him for that. He protected me from Victoria & Co. and indulged in my ridiculous whims. In a number of ways he became my father-approved teenage rebellion. Maybe I recognized that you would hate him, but in that mindset, I would have done anything to bring you back. It didn't matter if it required reckless endangerment or just pissing you off enough for you to come yell at me. I just wanted you."

"Yet you got me back and it wasn't enough."

"If that were true, I wouldn't be perma-glued to your back right now."

He paused before speaking. Edward having to take time to gather his thoughts was an ominous sign.

"I never wanted to be the controlling ass of a boyfriend forbidding who you saw, and yet I was. I know my actions only threw you into his reaches more, but for the love of God Bella, you had to know he was after you."

Oh I knew. I just didn't care.

"He'd made it clear a few times before you came home, and as my broken hand can attest, afterward as well. We never got together, but from his viewpoint, for all intents and purposes, we were an item. We spent all our time together and I preferred him to any other guy around me. I leaned heavily on him and he withstood it. If the price to pay was dealing with his affections, I saw it as an even trade off. If anything I used them to bind him to me."

"I won't even delve into the peril you placed yourself by making a werewolf your guardian. You do realize he was using your own self-less tendencies against you. He knew you felt you owed him, and utilized that at every turn."

"It never occurred to me that anyone would care that much about me. I'm sorry to keep harping on this, but lest you forget, I didn't think even you loved me at the time. Why would I think a sixteen your old boy held any ever lasting feelings for me? I was a walking void, and Jake was the band-aid trying to stop a geyser. I knew you were the only one for me, but I needed that small solace, so selfishly I let his crush go relatively unchecked."

I was rapidly worried this was going to deteriorate into an argument that I couldn't bear to have with Edward. Talking about this was bringing up old issues I had buried long ago, and in conjunction with the innate fear I felt being on this cliff, this talk was by no means going the way I had hoped.

Bracing myself, I decided to start over.

"Edward it was never that you were not enough. I told you I hadn't seen you clearly, so all I saw was you being overprotective about something I thought was a non-issue. I had always been perfectly safe with Jake, and I failed to recognize that you were jealous. Or more so, that you had every right to be."

He shook his head, thankfully managing not to dislodge me from his back in the process.

"I swear to you Bella, I tried not to be. But I could see what you chose not to; he was a very real threat to us. He was an ever-present reminder of my fatal mistake in leaving you. He prevailed to keep you safe when I failed. Most importantly, he could give you everything I could not: two beating hearts. It tore me apart. I wanted to be a good enough man to give you the opportunity to have a healthier life with him. Though I cannot deny that I equally wanted to eviscerate him and make from him a fine fur coat to keep you warm."

"That's why you vacillated on your Jake policy between locking me up and dropping me off."

"I thought I could justify keeping you from him because juvenile werewolves are volatile at best. When that failed abominably, and I read from his thoughts he was choosing to blitzkrieg you with his feelings, I thought it wise to pretend to be the bigger man. Surely you would see his manipulation and immaturity and come running back to me."

"Yeah, well we've already established I lack perspective. I told him that he was only a brother to me, but I suppose riding off into the sunset on the back of his bike didn't particularly enforce that assertion. You have to realize though, it was never that I reciprocated his feelings. But rather he somehow became this back-up plan for when I got too boring for you. And it felt like that was coming. You had Alice baby sit me and then you took to shuttling me back and forth like a custody case between you and Jake. I felt like your child. Maybe it was because I acted like one."

As frightened as our perilous position may have been, I was relieved to not have to face him while we laid this out before us. I think we both knew it was wimpy of us, but at least now we knew each other enough to know a visual confirmation of the other's agony would halt this conversation in its track.

"Would it aid in my apology if I vow that my inclinations towards you have never once been of the child friendly variety?"

I kissed below his ear, and kept my eyes open to the vastness of the ocean in front of us. For all of its power and depths, the water was intrinsically pulled towards the rocks, as inevitable as the rising of the sun. It met the rock, collapsing against it, only to repeat the pattern ad naseum. Yet with each meeting, the rock gave a little more of itself to the water as it washed out to sea. For some reason this felt profound, I had spent all my time since Edward's return trying to scrape away at his control, to make my gravitational pull towards him less hopeless. I just never noticed with each wave I eroded him more and more.

"Please don't apologize to me Edward. We all know how this ended. I hurt you with Jake. I fell victim to his games because I was too naïve and indebted to him to recognize them. I pushed and prodded you at every turn. 'Don't coddle me. Don't spoil me. Don't tell me what to do. Don't pick on Jake.' The only time I stopped telling you what not to do it was when I was demanding something else that you feared. 'Sleep with me," "Change me"… When you refused or negotiated with me, all I saw was an affirmation of all my insecurities. It didn't matter that you wanted to marry me, all I saw was that you didn't want me."

The shoulders I was slung across slumped forward as he responded.

"But Jake did. And because you allowed him to be led on, and were blind to how he took every opportunity to turn you against me, you thought you could trust that. You thought I didn't care and Jake allowed you to force my hand. Did you want me to fall apart Isabella? Would that prove my love to you?"

It would have been so much easier if he had been stomping around infuriated at me, but his weariness ate away at me, and started the tears.

"Please, Edward. For everything else I take full responsibility, but I never once used Jake to get a rise out of you. I used Jake as a security blanket and as a salve to my damaged pride. It all comes back to the two sides of the coin, and I never knew which way it was going to land. At least with him I thought I could control the situation. I was smarter, older, and not nearly as emotionally invested. He was a safe back-up bet to pick up the pieces if you left."

" Is that why you kissed him mere days after you agreed to be my wife? Was it a security deposit?"

My tears fell over the ledge to mix with the water beating against the unmovable rock.

"_No_. I kissed him because I thought you could compartmentalize it as something I had to do to keep Jake safe. It never occurred to me he would sink so low as to lie about killing himself in order to kiss me. That he would rub it in your face so thoroughly floored me. But can't you see that I couldn't handle him sacrificing himself for my happiness when he had already given so much to me? I wanted to be able to give him what he needed as a consolation prize of sorts. I knew he would never get me, but the least he could garner was a good-bye kiss if it kept him from killing himself."

"Bella how could you think that it wouldn't affect me? I watched your every response to him through his eyes. I felt your tongue slip past his lips and entwine with his. I heard his moans of pleasure and your gasping breath. I witnessed everything I could not do with you through the eyes of the _boy_ who wanted me dead and out of the way so he could take my place."

"I was wrong! Everything about that day, about Jacob, and about how I thought of you was wrong. As soon as I saw you lifeless in the tent I began to realize the ramifications of my actions. Not only could I hurt you, I could shatter the invincible. You were finally acting how I had been treating you, as if you were nothing but a stone statue, and I had done that. Of course I took the most extreme of all possible actions, and tried to lure you back with my blood. It wasn't until after the fact that I realized you would have let Victoria tear you a part if you had given into temptation."

I was sobbing uncontrollably by the time my explanation tampered off.

Edward pulled me around to sit on his lap and held me closely over the cliff. I wouldn't blame him if he just dropped me.

"The only thing I fear more than your death is being responsible for it. My actions are highly questionable in this situation as well. I was as blinded by my own insecurities about being good enough for you, as you were your own. Neither of us saw what was so clearly in front of us; that we were both lashing out in fear of losing the most important person in our lives. We had just come back from thinking we had lost each other, and then nearly dying. An event that left a lasting impression on us both, and I think bound our tongues in fear of prompting a repeat of the past. If I had spoken to you about my jealousy instead of impudently denying it as preposterous, would it have changed things?"

I nodded against his chest as my tears and snot rubbed into his shirt.

"I swear, if I knew I was hurting you, I would have let Jake rot. I mean, I would've felt guilty, but even at my most selfish; you were always the first in my thoughts and heart. But Edward, if I hadn't been such a naïve little girl, I would've seen Jake's ulterior motives that I think started even before you came back. I had a lot of time to think while you were hunting, and since that day in the woods, everything has become so much clearer. It's as if by finally seeing you, I can see myself."

"Maybe because we're two halves of a whole. Yes, by nature we are intrinsically different, but there's no you without me, and even despite the doggy debacle, I think the same is true for you."

"It is, you are my everything, and there's not enough time left in eternity for me to convey how sorry I am. I swear, Edward, you are the only man I have, or will ever love. I never felt a fraction of what I feel for you, towards Jake. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I need you to know, I would _never_ deliberately hurt you. And if by some chance you want to keep me around, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

He lifted my face to his and peered into my eyes.

"Bella I don't want you to make anything up to me. I want you to be with me because we love one another so much we can't bear to be apart; because our lives only work when we're together; because if there's any chance that I still have a soul, it resides in you, as yours rests in me. I don't want you indebted to me out of guilt. It would make me no better than mongrel."

His forehead rested against mine as he continued.

"We have both committed some grievous mistakes when it comes to each other, and at the end of the day, they all come down to the reason we're sitting on this cliff."

"You mean you left because you didn't understand that even though I'm human, I could love as much you love me. And of course that preposterous notion of yours that you didn't trust yourself not to hurt me, so you left to protect me."

"Just as you were so caught up in seeing your humanity as a weakness you viewed me absurdly and therefore didn't trust yourself to keep my love."

We both nodded and held onto each other a little tighter.

"Edward, I don't want to hold onto any of that anymore. As painful as these last few days have been, I wouldn't trade them for anything. They have brought us together in ways I never imagined."

"Nor I, love. I think it's time we forgive each other and absolve us of our guilt. But, I am a possessive man, and I can't share you anymore. I need to know it's only you and me from here on out."

Unwinding my arms from his neck, I leaned back slightly, inherently trusting him to keep hold of me.

Dangling from my arm was evidence of everything I had made Edward endure. I had tried to treat the two equally and show no favor to either side, but in this case, Jasper was wrong. Balance had been the wrong answer. Only one of them had the right to be cradled close to my body.

I detached Jake's silver bracelet from my wrist, and held it in my palm. Wolf and diamond sat unnaturally side-by-side for the last time. Ever so carefully, I removed Edward's diamond heart, and held it protectively in my other hand.

"I need your hand, please."

Finally he scooted back from the edge enough that my rear wasn't floating in mid air. Securing me with his left arm, he held out his right. In his palm I placed the last remnant of Jake's hold on us, and curled his fingers around it. With all my limited strength, I squeezed his fist trying to signal that he had my permission to destroy it. He hesitated, but with a slight tightening of his fingers, a cloud of dust was all that remained of the bracelet.

That alone wasn't enough. Reaching between our bodies, I removed the flannel drawstring from the pajama bottoms Edward had dressed me in this morning. Threading the cloth through the diamond heart, I held it out to him.

"Would you please put this on me?"

"Hold on tightly, this will take two hands."

Reverently, he brushed aside my hair, and tied the coarse and ugly string that held his heart around my neck, leaving it long enough to brush against my own.

His hands returned to their grip around my waist as I looked up at him.

"It's just us now."

He was staring intently at my mouth, as he looking deep in contemplation.

"Almost."

I wracked my brain for any other way to prove to him that he was my one and only. All that came to mind were things that even with our new intimacies would push him past his limits.

"I don't want Jake to have ever had any part of you that I haven't. He has felt your desire in ways that my boundaries have forbidden, and despite how dangerous it may be, I really must insist on equal treatment."

Licking my lips and trying not to let my mind wander with the possibilities, I chose to ask him instead of speculating, but he answered before I could.

"If you cut yourself in any way that allows the venom to enter your bloodstream, I will have to change you. There will be no other alternative. I need you to make a conscious decision to proceed, Bella."

Charlie, Rene, Phil, the wolf pack and all my school friends flew through my mind and faded in the instant I saw the hope and longing in Edward's eyes.

"I need to give this to you as much as you need to take it. If you're willing to take that chance, so am I."

Without hesitation his lips met mine with a force we had never experienced. It was love and possession that opened Edward's mouth and a desperate need to accept that parted mine. For the first time, Edward was physically inside me, and I joyously welcomed him home. I slipped past rational and reasoning as the sensations burned me from within; his cool tongue only enflaming the fire. I lost all my equilibrium as I tried to draw more and more of him into me. My mind fogged and I felt weightless as our mouths took our own pleasure and gave it back in triplicate.

Time ceased to matter as Edward purged any remnant of Jake from my mind, mouth, and heart. All of me belonged to Edward, just as my heat against him reminded him he was mine. Fire and ice were no longer destroying us, but had melted together to form a new entity.

When it felt as if the earth had shaken, Edward gradually released my mouth and pulled back. Radiant joy stretched across his face in conjunction with a smug pride. We had not only taken an enormous leap, but he could finally trust himself to be with me.

I was preparing to tell him how proud I was, when I noticed the background behind Edward had changed. No longer was I met with the looming forest behind us, but a massive rock face seeming to rise hundreds of feet above us.

Recognition of my awareness dawned in Edward's eyes as he shifted me closer.

"But?…How?….When?…"

Flabbergasted I stuttered incoherently trying to discern how I missed our plummet. All that came out was more nonsense.

"We're not wet!"

His eyebrow lifted and devious amusement resonated in his arrogant smirk.

"No, _we_ are not."

Huh?

His pointed downward stare and the slight flare of his nostrils clarified the situation immediately.

I waited for the mortification to set in, but much to my surprise, my face echoed his smugness. I felt liberated to be so open and free with him, and I'd be damned if I would ever cower from that.

He laughed at my reaction, and set me on the rock protrusion next to him. As my feet met the ground, a strong breeze rode off the water and chilled my bare legs.

"Edward, where are my pants?"

He pointed vaguely in the direction of the sea caves, where you could just barely make out a patch of plaid.

This is apparently what I get for grand drawstring gestures: a bare butt.

Trying to employ a stern intonation, I crossed my arms and stared at him.

"Perhaps you should give a girl some warning before you jump off mountains for a change of scenery."

He didn't even pretend to look anything but wicked, as he scooped me up and wrapped my bare legs around his waist.

He was glancing down to where his pale hands merged into my own milky skin left uncovered by his shirt, Never looking away, his voice sank an octave as he spoke hungrily into my ear.

"But then I wouldn't have gotten _this _view."

**Chapter Notes:**

_Yet again, not much in the way of references. Edward and Bella needed to get this out on their own for once._

_The few included are as follows:_

_Michael Buble, "Home"_

_M.A.D.- mutually assured destruction. E/B just twisted around an international relations term for their own amusement. It's a Cold War term in reference to the purpose of the détente between the US and USSR._

_M.O- modus operandi – is short for a latin phrase meaning mode of operation…you've most likely heard it in a cop show, about a perpetrator.. "What's the guy's MO?"_

"_Fire and Ice" poem by Robert Frost_

**I had originally planned to break Bella's issues and the Jake story into two chapters, but the two are so intrinsically linked, they had to stay together. There will be a bit more covered in future chapters, but I feel like they got to the meat of it on that cliffside. **

**Please review and tell me what you think of our beloved couple's new communication skills. If you so desire, head over to the Atlas Shrugged thread on the Twilighted[.]net/forum. It's in the AU section, so come join us…I give out teasers. I'm also going to post a picture of the Cape Flattery, so you'll see where Edward took Bella to torture her.  
**


	7. Tethered

**Author's Note:**

_**Clearly Twilight is still not mine.**_

_**Thanks for all y'alls patience. I'm terribly sorry for the week's delay on this chapter, between work and lack of Internet, it just wasn't a happening thing. I'm going to try and eek out another chapter this week to make up for it though.**_

_**Thanks to my sister for reading this, and all the lovely ladies on the Atlas Shrugged thread for their amazing insight.**_

_**­­­­­____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________**_

"Would one of you like to inform me why, when I inquired about your whereabouts, your sister informed me you two were jumping off cliffs..._again_?"

Edward literally shuffled his feet and refused to make eye contact with Esme. I half wondered if it was a ploy to make her more sympathetic. I would have shuffled alongside him if he weren't adamantly refusing to set me down. Therefore instead of attempting to look innocent, we were caught red-handed. His clothes were dirty and torn from climbing our way back up the rock face, and I was still pantless.

The look on Esme's face reflected how severely busted we were. It was an interesting experience to see Edward on the hot seat for once, since Charlie normally held the Come-to-Jesus meetings.

"You see Mother, it was strictly for recreational purposes..."

'Mother?' Who knew Edward was a kiss ass?

"Don't even try it Edward Cullen. If you think that just because I mother you all, I can be assuaged by a pout and an innocent tone to your voice, you are highly mistaken. Have you forgotten that 'recreational purposes' are what started this downward spiral?"

Good job, Edward, remind her it's my fault.

I loosened my legs from around Edward's waist, signaling to him to release his hold. If the mass of hilarity I was hit with was any judge, I apparently flashed the Cullen Brothers during my dismount. The punishment for trying to take responsibility seemed to inevitably come at the price of my flailing dignity.

"Esme, please, I agree that Edward used a poor choice of words, but you are well aware that was all my doing."

"Something that could have been easily avoided if _this_ one had listened to me when I told him it was futile for us to leave! "

She was getting really worked up, and if any color could have bled through her pale cheeks, I imagined she would have been ragingly red. Still, irate vampire or not, I had fought too hard to rebuild Edward's confidence to let her knock him back down again.

"Don't you think that might be between the two of us? Regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not, even I know it was done strictly to protect me at the sacrifice of his happiness."

I was surprised Edward was letting me face Esme on my own. In the past, he would've interfered and shepherded me away to keep me from falling apart at my hurt feelings. The fact that he stood by my side and let me face the lashings with him spoke volumes.

"Please don't doubt that this isn't also directed at you Bella. You hit at the heart of the problem. Everything is about sacrifice with the two of you. You're both ever so eager to throw your lives away, and frankly I'm sick of it! I forbid you both from ever doing it again!"

Her voice had gone exceedingly shrill. Emmett and Jasper, who had been watching the show with rapt attention, rubbed their ears from the decibels she reached.

Edward, recognizing the impeding explosion from angry Mama Bear Esme, took the lead again.

"Esme, neither of us has ever set out to intentionally sacrifice ourselves..."

And he solidly struck out.

"What part of pleading with the Volturi for death doesn't sound intentional Edward? Or how about Bella slicing open a vein in the middle of a vampire fight to get your attention? I'm at the point of wondering if you two conspire in her room at night about martyring techniques! Or have you taken up the reigns from Emmett in trying to give a vampire grey hair?"

Edward and I were now resoundingly at a loss of how to proceed. Unconsciously we both reached for each other's hands, and a glance to my right showed that we had mimicked each other's body stances entirely. Our heads were both low, our shoulders slumped, and shame was reflected across our faces. So much so I vaguely wondered if Jasper was responsible for it.

Carlisle, sensing discord in his home, came downstairs, hopefully to placate Esme. When he reached us, he took once glance at his wife's face; his eyes grew large, his hands came up in the universal sign of peace, and he backed away slowly until he reached the stairs, and fled back to his office.

I vaguely heard Edward echo my thoughts as he whispered "Coward."

Carlisle indubitably heard him as his reply echoed down the stairs.

"I love you Son, but I'm not being locked out of my own room for this. There's a shovel in the shed, you might want to start digging your way out, right about now."

Chuckling, Big Brother Emmett swaggered forward to give it a shot, or perhaps reclaim his grey-hair-giving title.

"Personally I don't see what you're all worked up about. Edward was with her this time, and of all their stunts, this was one of the safer ones. And judging by her appearance, it looks like a little fresh air did a body good…"

Edward had the audacity to smirk at what I could only imagine to be a mental high five from Emmett.

"My son's being perverts is hardly the topic at hand Emmett, nor really, is how their afternoon was spent."

Her voice had tampered off into a resignation, that Edward's mental insight interpreted far more accurately than I ever would have.

"Esme, we're working things out. The days of mass hysteria and overreaction are over, and with it the threat to our family. We've been trying this novel concept of communicating lately."

This was slowly making sense to me in ways that Esme's initial anger had not. I had never once seen her forbid the Cullen siblings from anything that didn't revolve around damaging her home. To see her fuming and making declarations was exceedingly bizarre. It was only after Edward's elaboration that I was able to realize she wasn't angry, but terrified of our relationship continuously jeopardizing our lifespan. I vaguely thought that only I could cause vampires to fear for their lives.

I tugged on Edward's hand to signal for him to follow me, and together we surrounded Esme. With my free hand I initiated the first hug of my own making, causing Edward to do the same. When the two of us were firmly ensconced around her, I began to speak.

"Ever since meeting you last year, you have done nothing but been a constant mothering force in my life. You have risked your own family, time and time again for my welfare. I know at first it was for the sake of Edward, and preserving the happiness you had waited so long for him to experience…"

She interrupted me before I could continue.

"Bella, I have thought of you as my surrogate daughter from the first time you blushed your way into Edward's heart. I would have loved you for his sake alone, but the joy and levity you bring into this family has endeared you into all of our hearts."

"I have tried to inform her that our family isn't endangered because of her, but rather the family fights because of one its own needs protection. It's a far cry different than her thinking she's an imposition."

Edward had taken the words out of my mouth before I even realized I meant to say them. Esme had made me her family, and wasn't angered because of my disruptive presence, but because there was internal discord among her children.

"I have only recently become aware the extent of which all of you have welcomed me into your home and family. The fact that you allowed me to attend to Edward after what I had done, speaks so loudly of your acceptance and trust in me, that it boggles me. I know how difficult hat had to have been for you Esme, to see your son suffering and to step aside for someone else."

Esme rapidly turned our Mom-Sandwich into her squeezing the life out of the two of us.

"The last thing I would ever endeavor to do, is interfere in your relationship, but at every turn I am forced to choose between the welfare and happiness of the two of you. I left behind a girl I had expected to spend the next few centuries mothering, behind for her safety at the behest of my son's happiness. In turn I nearly lost Edward in the process."

Carlisle had returned to the main room upon discerning the change in his wife from temper to despair.

"To be fair, we nearly lost the whole family. Everyone distanced themselves from the aching void where you two should have been. Jasper couldn't bear to be around Edward, and shortly thereafter Alice. My incandescent daughter became withdrawn, subdued, and morose at the loss of her best friend and brother. Emmett and Rose stayed away under the guise of a honeymoon, but I wager it had more to do with her inability to grapple with the fear of losing her family touchstone. We became less of a unit and resembled the tattered remnants of a weather-beaten flag, rapidly unraveling with little to hold us together."

"Then when we're finally reunited, you two kept clawing at each other and making yourselves miserable, until Edward was literally in pieces, and Bella was bleeding. I stepped back to let you work it out, and then I hear Alice shrieking that you're back on a cliff again!"

Edward shook his head and glared at the ceiling before speaking.

"I assume Alice failed to tell you we were up there attempting to iron out the insecurities that led us to this point?"

Esme's trembling became so severe that Carlisle pulled her away from us, and into his own arms to soothe her.

"I'm sorry if I hear cliff diving and am immediately inundated with visions of my soon-to-be daughter dead on the rocks, and my son killing himself in response! I thank God I can't sleep or I'd be haunted by the nightmare in the clearing again. I worried about my family fighting, but I have never been so terrified as to come across the two of you afterwards, broken and bleeding. I…I can't do it anymore."

I was filled with a shame far different than the one I had dealt with in regards to Edward. Before me was a woman who had opened her heart and risked her family for me. She was distraught and shaking because she loved Edward and I so fully that our recklessness had eaten away her constraint. I was guilt ridden and ashamed that we had hurt the two most loving and compassionate people I would ever know. A glance at Edward's sunken face confirmed he felt the same.

He held me close as he turned us to address our family and answer for our sins.

I jumped in first, wanting to offer my own apology and assurance.

"There will never be another time in which you are forced to choose between the two of us, or the family as a whole. For having ever made you feel like you might, we are eternally sorry."

Edward squeezed my hand in support, as he made his own amends.

"The days of our autonomy have passed. We've learned, unfortunately through repetition, that we are incapable of being separated. There is no demarcation line of where I end and she begins; we are merely one never-ending circle. But we would be floating and lost without our family, who we are perpetually linked to by choice, and through our love for all of you."

There's a reason I should let him handle these situations, he explains it far better than I ever could. That wouldn't stop me from trying though. If I had perhaps tried harder beforehand, our family wouldn't have felt the need to hold an intervention.

"We're only the E and B puzzle pieces in the Cullen alphabet, and on their own, there's not a lot you can spell with just those two letters."

All I was met with was snickering before the ever-blunt Rose responded.

"You really think the sun rises and sets out of Edward's ass, don't you? Emmett fulfills the 'E' role just fine, so feel free to get lost Edward. We'll keep Bella, and you can go host Sesame Street and tell them E stands for your Emo ass."

Alice had floated downstairs thinking we had moved far enough on from cliff diving to give her a hard time about ratting us out.

"She's right. Even Bella's beloved Shakespeare would call you two overwrought and melodramatic. It's decidedly time for a genre change."

Carlisle concurred with her assessment, and attempted to bring the overly emotional confrontation to a close.

"I personally wouldn't mind a respite, between you two, the newborn fight, and the wolves, we're overdue for some solitude. I think we all need to settle down and reestablish our ties, without the drama."

Edward's eyes fell on Esme's and minutely tensed.

"I fear your wishes might go unanswered this evening, Esme has something to share with the class."

Sighing, she leaned away from Carlisle to address Edward and I.

"I'm sorry for leaping to conclusions. I was unaware that you two were working through things today, but I had spent all morning on the phone being threatened by a foul-mouthed wolf trying to terrorize my family if we didn't release Bella to him."

Growling erupted from sources I had least expected, and silence from those I would have thought to be tearing the house apart.

Rose, Emmett, and Jasper menacingly flanked us, hissing and growling at the mention of Jake, while Edward merely chuckled.

"While I appreciate and echo your sentiments, the Puppy is no threat to us. He is merely under the mistaken impression that he has any right to Bella. A few phone calls should rectify the situation."

Jasper stepped back with a strange combination of pride and amusement on his face, as he looked at Edward.

Emmett's growling refused to cease as he barraged Esme with details of Jake's ultimatum.

"He implied that we had kidnapped her, and, if my, insert an astonishingly large amount of expletives here, son, doesn't stop trying to brainwash her, he was going to finish the job Victoria started. Edward was going to have to accept that she had made her choice, and it didn't include necrophilia."

Edward wasn't the only one without a filter lately.

"I'll be damned if Jake knows what necrophilia is, and if he does, what the hell makes him think I'd be more inclined towards bestiality?"

Rosalie chose to ignore the pile of snorting male vampires around us, and offered her own suggestion.

"I've got a pair of steel toe boots that would deliver the message quite succinctly. You'd also be doing the world a service by neutering a stray in the process."

"The steel would protect my toes too….but that would imply that I'll be seeing him. I'm not running from Edward's arms at the behest of Jake. He's right, we'll make a few calls, and I'll deal with him later, when he's less volatile."

Esme looked at me as if I'd grown another head.

"You're choosing to not risk yourself, Edward, or your relationship and make a rational decision?"

Warily I nodded.

Equally astonished, Carlisle questioned Edward.

"You're not racing off to skin him alive for threatening to take Bella from you?"

He answered from the crook of my neck he was currently nuzzling while playing with my heart necklace.

"He can huff and puff all he wants, but it will only serve to make him asthmatic. Nothing is capable of separating us, least of all a little, pathetic, dog.."

As he and I were beginning to get lost in one another, they swarmed, surrounding us in a parental tangle of arms and bodies, as they hugged us close.

I glanced at Edward, hoping for a little insight into this love fest.

"We passed some bizarre test of theirs. Apparently our word didn't suffice for them to believe we'd changed. This is essentially our gold star graduation present for relationship maturity"

Chastened, Carlisle released us.

"It's not often we get to act like parents to you all, so close your smart mouth and let us enjoy it."

"Or not. You could always keep it up so we could ground you. Carlisle's always wanted to play warden…"

All traces of sarcasm were erased from Edward's face as his eyebrows shot into his hair and his jaw dropped.

Unable to prevent myself, I laughed uproariously at their ability to not only thwart, but also horrify him. Edward, a century old mind-reading vampire was just as disturbed by the sex lives of his parents as any 17 year-old would be. It was hysterical and so gloriously normal I couldn't control myself.

Why I had ever sought comfort in the humanity of a pack of wolves was beyond me. This family I found myself a part of, had the same dynamics and dysfunction as any American household. A strange diet and immortality couldn't erase the intricacies and bonds of the Cullens by any means. They loved and laughed; fought and argued; persevered and stuck by each other through good and bad times; and even more so through Edward and I's relationship.

A part of me cringed in the realization that it took meeting vampires to find the ties that would bind me to this world. I loved my mother fiercely, and would miss her, but as I knew when I left her, it was only without me that she would ever grow up. Charlie was all together different. He had loved and lost my mother, and lived a solitary life until I returned. He may not have always known how to be a father to me, but his intentions were always honorable. More often than not we existed separately within the same house, with little to no interaction. I had admired that attribute in him, as it mirrored my own, but it didn't erase our ability to exist without one another just fine.

Yet the Cullen family interaction brought out sociability and a sense of belonging I had never felt among humans. At this point it was a given my life would be spent solely by Edward's side, but I yearned for his name to tether me to this family. I needed to be Bella Cullen: wife of Edward, sister to Alice, Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper, daughter to Carlisle and Esme. These people before me were all the reasons I had been lonely and distant throughout my life. They hadn't entered it yet. Once again I both cursed and thanked the fates for the past few days. Without them I might never have had the clarity to return the embrace of this family before me.

Strange that it took Edward having a ten year old boy moment at the thought of his parent's sex lives to make me comprehend that fact…

Needing to flee the scene and flush his brain with bleach, Edward threw my still laughing form over his shoulder, thankfully taking the time to cover my rear with the shirt, and flew up the stairs.

Carlisle's snickering reached my ears even on the third floor, as Emmett again asked if he could put Jake on the endangered species list.

I was relieved to hear his werewolf hatred seemed to only spread towards the man he, rightly or wrongly, deemed responsible for Edward and I's relationship woes. Thankfully Edward recognized the need to curtail Emmett's good intentions and promised we would make some phone calls.

"That was not exactly the homecoming I had anticipated. I had nefarious plans to hide all your clothing and keep you in this state of undress for a few hours or centuries."

Snuggling into his neck, I trailed kisses along his jaw line, encouraging a dogged determination for procrastination.

His lips met mine at last, parting them without hesitation, for a renewal of the bond we'd just had tested downstairs. I couldn't help but wonder if it would ever cease to amaze me how he could simultaneously calm and rile me. With every stroke of his tongue, the mention of the wolves, and our family's concern slipped from my mind. In its place snuck images of endless days and nights spent coddled in his arms, as our bodies fought to get closer and closer still. It was my greatest desire to merge myself with him, to wear him around me, and in me, and never be parted.

We found ourselves curled on our bed emerged in each other, as our hands and mouths met time and time again. Eventually Edward disconnected our lips and moved his head an infinitesimal amount away. His eyes bore into my own, seeking answers to unasked questions. Unknowing what he needed to see in me, I kept my gaze locked with his own, willingly stripping my defenses and letting him find whatever he was seeking. I cupped his cheek, supporting whatever internal battle he was waging inside of him. A resolve crossed his face as he removed any distance between us.

"You need to go see Jacob."

That was certainly the furthest thing from my mind at the present, and all I could do was sputter in response.

"The hell? Why? No!"

A smile teased his face, tinged with a touch of relief. I felt that I perhaps had been tested yet again this evening, and my disbelief and rejection was what he needed to hear.

"There are a myriad of reasons for you going, not the least of which is to torment him with my smell all over you."

"As much as enjoyment as I derived from the last few minutes, I'll tell Esme to put you in the dog house if you kissed me, only to send me on my way to piss off Jake."

Rolling me onto my back, he straddled my hips and devoured me yet again.

"Irritating the dog is only a side benefit to the innate knowledge that I can kiss you like this anytime I want."

Approving of his answer I refocused on the task at hand, driving all thought from our minds through the clever implementation of our mouths. Just as all awareness of reality was escaping me, Edward decided to approach the situation again.

"If we do not deal with him, he will remain a lingering nuisance throughout our life. I have little concern that Sam could deal with him, but we both need closure."

I groaned in both agreement and annoyance at his infallible insistence.

"Fine. Call Sam and tell him we're coming for a visit. You all helped save their tribe by fighting the newborns, the least they can do is let you cross the boundary this one time."

"I'm not going to go with you. If we're to have a life together, I need to let you say good-bye to your past with the knowledge that I trust you. To be honest, even before that damned kiss, I don't know that I could have said that with all the conviction it deserves."

I clasped his face in my hands and spoke directly into his mouth.

"You had no reason to entrust me with either my own safety or your love for me. I abused both at every turn. All I can do now is vow to you it will never again happen. The trust of both you and our family is worth any good-byes I will have to make before we're married."

Edward rapidly disconnected us and took to pacing through the room, carefully avoiding any and all eye contact.

"Bella, it is imperative that you speak with him because you need to lay to rest that part of your life, and free him from this obligation he seems to feel towards you. Moreover, we cannot risk our family by angering the wolves before we change you. We just finished promising our family to stop taking unnecessary risks."

It was the second time today that Edward had referred to changing me. Finally he granted himself permission to be selfish enough to keep me with him. The days of me begging and pleading with him had passed. He knew, soul be damned, that the only future either of us had was together.

Standing from the bed, I rose to meet my pacing fiancé, and looked ahead to the years, towns, and bedrooms to come in which I would stand locked in the arms of my husband.

"I will handle Jake. I can't say I know what I will say, but I'll make it all right, I promise. No one is going to jeopardize our life together."

I went to my bag on the floor for a pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt. While I would have loved to allow Edward his comeuppance, it would be cruel and perhaps even dangerous to taunt Jacob. I needed to give us all peace to let go and move on, and that would require a little sensibility on all sides.

Not bothering to cover myself, I changed in the room as I asked Edward to call Sam and request to be allowed onto the reservation so he could drop me off.

Surprisingly, Sam eagerly agreed, citing his gratitude towards the Cullens for seeing to Seth's injuries, and expressing his utmost desires that we would straighten out Jake's delusions.

"I thought we could take the Ducati. It seems fitting to ride a bike in together on your first and my last trip to the Res before my last name makes me fall under the "do not admit into La Push" list…"

I trailed off at the despondency resonating across Edward's face. I dropped my shoes and went to ease whatever demons he was wrestling.

"If it's too dangerous we don't have to take it, I only thought it might be nice to share that since I was such a brat about it last time."

He gently placed his fingers against my rambling mouth, and pressed his forehead against mine.

"Your lack of a heart beat will more likely deny you entrance there than your last name."

Confusion swam through my eyes, silently questioning him.

With a dejected sigh he answered.

"You'll still be Bella Swan. We're not getting married."

**Chapter Notes:**

**Firstly, the little bomb at the end. Please realize I do nothing without a reason, and that I would never deviate our characters from their core nature. If you think about it, i imagine you'll piece together what made Edward make his little declaration. Also keep in mind, he's fully on board for changing her...  
**

No references this time, though it pained me to not drop a 100 Death Cab songs after seeing their show this week. Maybe next time though.

I meant to put this in the last chapter, but Edward's Vanquish rant was straight from Jeremy Clarkson's review on Top Gear…hands down the best show on TV.

Please review ladies and gents (?). They've dropped off in the last few chapters and I'd like to hear from you all to make sure you all are still interested and liking the story. Tell me what you think about the Cullen Intervention and Mama Bear Esme's rant. Do you agree or disagree? Do you think it should have been more severe or focused on something else? What about Edward wanting Bella to see Jake on her own? Or his little bomb at the end? What do you think would make him say that? I love hearing from you all and all your excellent insight into our beloved characters :)

Also come play on the Atlas Shrugged forum on www[.]twilighted[.]net/forum/ ?f=33&t=2952&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I give out teasers and we get seriously analytical!


	8. Tilting

A/N:

Thank you for all of y'all's feedback on the last chapter. I know the cliffhanger was evil and I got a lot of "WHAT!?" reviews. I replied to as many as I could, but ultimately decided a new chapter would answer them faster.

A huge thanks to my sister for her help, the ladies on the Atlas Shrugged thread on Twilighted for listening to my rambling, and especially to Michellephants (author of The Vampire in the Basement [see my favorites for a link]) for letting me test-run lines on her. Last but not least, is a massive shout out of much love to faeriegal713 for her incredible recommendation on the Twilight Enabler.

There will also be a huge chapter note at the bottom that includes all kinds of stuff, but I don't want to delay your reading of the chapter any further:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"_You'll still be Bella Swan. We're not getting married."_

The only sounds to break the interminable silence that followed his words were my shallow gasping pants and the crashing of my heart. My body froze, and my limbs sunk under the weight of the shock of his denial. All of my insecurities we had sought so hard to diffuse rose up and threatened to choke me.

Finally, here was the point in which everything caught up to me. He had forgiven me too easily for my indiscretions. I would now feel as he had, watching his hopes and future be pulled out from underneath him. It was interminably worse to know that I was solely to blame for my own agony.

I blinked back the impending sting of tears, determined to not make Edward feel guilty for his justified decision. He had every right to not want to marry me.

"If..if that's what you want…"

He grasped my face, forcing me to look at him.

"Bella, it's not a matter of what I _want_. Never think for a moment that I don't want you. Therein in fact, lies the problem. It's not what _you_ want."

My earlier vision of clasped hands adorned with matching rings flashed through my mind as he spoke of what I allegedly didn't desire. Pushing it aside, I laid my head against his chest and willed this to be enough.

His hands ran through my hair as his breath became ragged as well. The more he tried to explain himself, the more worked up he got.

"You made it abundantly clear you were against marriage, and yet I pushed you into your acquiescence. I bartered my own desires against your fears, forcing us both to give into something we were intrinsically against."

"I...I guess I don't understand. You keep referring to changing me. Why would you give me what I want and take nothing for yourself?"

"At the end of the day, I've been tilting at windmills. Its entirely futile to keep you human when the Fates themselves throw you into every possible scenario to make you otherwise."

"Edward, I refuse to be changed merely to make things _easier_. If you hadn't noticed, I have a penchant for being as difficult as possible. We can't make this work if you just give up and give in to me. It puts us straight back to square one and we'll both end up miserable."

A frustrated growl rumbled through his chest.

"I'm a 105, how is it possible for me bumble this so horrifically? Perhaps I should take Carlisle up on his shovel offer…"

He sat on the couch, dragging me into his lap in the process.

"Bella, nothing about this is easy. I can no longer deny that I don't want you beside me for every moment of eternity. I'm not caving to your demands, but rather I'm deciding I want to be selfish, and damn the consequences."

Nuzzling against his neck I needed further clarity about his unexpected change of will.

"What about our souls?"

He shifted me until we made eye contact, with nothing to hinder our view.

"What good is a soul if we're apart?"

At his words, one more weight fell away from our unbalanced scale. Timelines and specifics were irrelevant, for here and now, we were making our everlasting commitment.

I closed the distance between us, giving my silent agreement to his lips.

I would be changed, and we would never be parted. His denial of marriage was not a matter of my further penance, but his misguided attempt to fulfill my needs. The same needs I had neglected to inform him that had drastically changed. After this week, being his wife was as imperative to me as spending eternity with him.

Pulling away, I thought that as far as we had come, we had yet to make a habit of talking things through before making unilateral decisions. I was bound and determined to be married, and here he was backing away from it for my sake. If it weren't so sad, I'd have to laugh.

"What does this mean then? You're going to change me, and then what? You can't tell me you don't still want marriage."

He shuffled me around his lap, until I was straddling his thighs. He tightened his grip around my hips, glancing between us as he spoke.

"All I want is you. Nothing else matters."

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and hugged him closely to me. My mind was overburdened with thoughts of our future, and the yet another willing sacrifice my former fiancé was making. It was with the thought of him being my ex in any capacity that I became steadfast in my resolve. The days of Edward's sacrifice had passed.

Nebulous thoughts of discussing my decision scattered in, and rapidly out of my mind. For once an opportunity arose for me to surprise him, to grant him his one desire, and give to him the only thing I had to offer: myself.

My own smile threatened to fall into Edward's crooked smirk, as I imagined all the ways in which to play with him. I devilishly reviled in simultaneously making us both divinely happy and messing with him.

I parted the edges of his shirt aside with my nose, and left a wake of kisses up his chest, pausing only to nibble his collarbone in fair turnaround. My cheek brushed against his jaw and around his neck, as my lips blazoned a path to his ear. With little delicacy, I drew his lobe into my mouth, allowing my hot breath to pant in his ear. His hands traveled south towards my thighs as his fingers clenched in time to each of my kisses. Unnecessary shallow breaths exuded from his frame as he let me continue my sweet torture.

"So you're promising to give me _everything_ I want, and the only price you ask is for us to spend the next few millennia together?"

The faintest of nods brushed aside my hair in conjunction with a hefty gulp against my cheek.

"Yes. _Everything. Anything._"

I placed a final kiss under his ear before throwing down the gauntlet at his sacrificial anti-marriage campaign.

"That's a shame, because all ends of the bargain are now nullified. That includes the sex.

I was still gloating at my mini-triumph over Edward earlier. He had huffed and puffed and gasped like a trout out of water at my own declaration. I was secretly thrilled that he had been so utterly disgruntled at me taking sex off the table. Though my testiness over my own sexual frustration was chump change in comparison to his decades worth.

Of course riding on what Emmett had deemed "Edward's crotch-rocket," in exceedingly close contact, after my deliberate teasing, made things infinitely more difficult. Leave it to me find a way to goad Edward, and managing to make myself miserable as well. Arguably, it was worth it, if only to keep him on his toes, and teach him a lesson about single-handedly making decisions for us. It was also tempered by the fact that very shortly, with a little help, I would fulfill both our needs.

After I had stunned Edward, I had jumped off his lap, grabbed my shoes, and run into Alice's room. We promptly had a brief conversation involving a lot of questionable eyebrow raises, shoulder shrugs, and miming. It more than slightly frightened me how adept Alice was at miming to the point that I briefly pondered if there was a corroborating story buried in the annals of Cullen Family history about it.

Eventually, through silent communication, we established that she had blocked Edward through her own devious means I chose not to inquire about. She promptly pulled out a sparkling orange notebook and matching pen, half full of what appeared to be family notes. Yanking it back out of my hands, she rapidly scribbled a note to me in it.

"Yes, this is how we communicate without Edward. We all have color-coordinated notebooks that we keep nearby in case of emergency secret keeping."

Not bothering to hold back my eye roll, I held out my hand for the notebook.

In my own chicken-scratch handwriting, at a much slower speed, I wrote out my bizarre update of my earlier request.

"After we're gone, go ahead and look at our future. If it no longer resembles what we already had planned, please know it is still a go, it's just twice the surprise now and even more important."

A devious gleam appeared in her eye at the prospect of surprising Edward. Recognizing it, I chose to put the kibosh on it immediately.

"I'll handle the pre-planning that leads up to it, and please stick as close to the original vision as possible. The goal is to give him his heart's desire, not turn this into a prank war."

A tiny harrumph floated past my ears as she pouted and nodded her agreement. Then in Alice fashion, her annoyance rapidly fled her miniscule body only to be replaced with bouncing excitement. Alice often gave the impression that in light of her size, she was only capable of holding one emotion at a time, and she rapidly fluctuated between them.

Jumping on top of me in her new glee, she ferociously hugged me, before disappearing for seconds, only to return with a leather jacket.

"Not that Edward would ever let anything happen to you, but if you're taking the bike, better safe than sorry. It'll also keep you warm from the onslaught of air rushing across your body at a 165mph."

Rosalie had instantly appeared with her aforementioned steel-toed boots at the mention of the Ducati.

"Rose, as much as I appreciate the offer, I don't plan on neutering Jake. It would be both cruel and involve far too close contact with his manly…doggy…bits…parts...things..."

She had cut off my genital rambling by picking up my foot and shoving the boots on me herself.

"Stop your sniveling Bella. You're going to be straddling a powerful piece of pure throbbing muscle. You've never ridden anything like it before. When Edward lays you down around the curves it'll tear you apart. You need protection."

Hence I found myself astride the humming Ducati, with Alice's leathers and Rose's 'protective' boots, firmly ensconced between metal and marble, with sex on the brain. Pretty much the last thing I had ever hoped to be thinking about before I went to meet with Jake. It was after all, raging hormones that led me to respond to him in the first place.

Faster than I imagined possible, we crossed the invisible boundary into Quiluete lands. Edward never slowed, yet his thighs and biceps tensed around me as we entered his former enemies' territory. My stomach followed suit, clenching and cramping as I contemplated the weight of what I was about to face. I was unable to enjoy cruising at immense speed along forbidden roads for the first time with Edward. All I was I could focus upon was what I had to do to insure I would never be invited back.

Too soon the boundary line gave way to the turn-off to Jake's house. It signified Edward's imminent departure, and the demons I would be left to face on my own. He slowed to an unexpected crawl to make the turn, and stopped well before the house.

He plucked off my helmet and rested his head on my shoulder as he lightly laughed.

"It appears someone has stepped in to defend your honor in my stead."

Visions of Rose and Emmett paying Jake a social call sent my heart racing in panic.

"You neglected to inform me you'd told Charlie a modified version of our tale."

"How do you know about that?"

He pointed in the distance, to the cruiser parked around the side of the house.

Apparently my daily calls home to allay Charlie's concern about our relationship, had not sufficed. According to Edward, Charlie had ridden off to give his chosen Prince Charming a tongue lashing for us.

"I stumbled home after Esme dropped me off and looked like hell. The only answer I had for Charlie was honesty. You know at best I can only stretch the truth, I suck at lying, so I gave him a less supernatural run down of events."

"Whatever you said make quite an impression. His opinion towards me seems to have risen quite a bit, and he's deeply ashamed of Jake. While I don't have Jasper's gift, he also seems to be emanating guilt at how he threw you at the mongrel."

Envy welled up inside me. I very much wanted to be a fly on the wall during that conversation, and yet Edward got a front row seat. Charlie had rarely given my relationship the benefit of the doubt, and to hear Edward tell it, he was now in there defending it.

"Come on, I don't have to read your mind to know you want to eavesdrop. If we stay upwind, I can sneak you around so you can hear. Jake shouldn't be able to detect us if you stay quiet. The window's open and their dulcet tones are hardly keeping things private."

He helped me off the bike, as my legs were a bit unsteady from the ride. Edward merely picked me up instead, and silently ran us around the house. I idly thought that this was wrong, but I was far too intrigued to pull back now. Besides, I was to be a Cullen, and that involved a mass invasion of privacy. I decided to start getting used to it now as Charlie's voice wafted through the window.

"I trusted you with her Jake. I've known you your whole damn life, and not once did I ever think you'd take things this far! Threatening to kill yourself if she doesn't kiss you? What the hell did you think that was going to accomplish?"

Charlie's seething voice rose progressively with each question he hurled at Jake.

"Did you think she'd decide she loves you after you ruined her relationship? I may not know why she took him back, but she did, and he treats her like God's gift. But how do you go about things? By forcing her to kiss you and giving her ultimatums?"

"You encouraged me to go after her! Do the words, 'Good for you Jake,' ring any bells Charlie? You wanted her to be with me as much as I did, so don't give me that shit."

"And we were both wrong, son. I wanted her to stay here, and I knew that boy would take her away. You were the easy and safe choice to keep her in Forks. I was a selfish man and a poor father to boot, for egging you on. But she's made her decision, and I expect you to respect it."

"You want me to give up? She kissed me back! Just because she said yes to that asshole doesn't mean the game's up. I've still got a chance and I mean to take it. I promise she's thinking about me and wondering what if…."

Even from out here I could hear Charlie's resigned sigh.

"Let it go, Jake. She came home and announced her marriage, and ran off to take care of him. She's been there ever since, by her own choice. She's not yours Jake, she never will be. She may have kissed you, but it's him she wants."

Jacob's groan followed shortly thereafter.

"I bet they're keeping her from us, I called over there and they wouldn't let me speak to her."

"You and your father seriously need to let go of this prejudice towards the Cullens. I spoke to her earlier; she's nursing Edward back to health. She said he's getting better, but she'll be there for a while yet…. For the love of God, Jake, they're not holding her hostage, so stop trying to get out of bed. She wouldn't appreciate the efforts."

I realized this was most likely the best cue I would have to make an entrance. I turned to Edward to tell him as much, but he was already pressing a small blue phone into my hands. Smiling, I took it and kissed his cheek.

"I'll get a ride home from Charlie. I'll call you when I'm on my way."

"Do you want me to meet you at your house or let you have some time with your dad?"

I was puzzled for a moment as to why he thought I was going back to Charlie's when I said I'd meet him at home. Realization dawned and earned him a quick kiss.

"Home's where you are, if you're at the mansion, that's where I'll be."

His smile was so bright it rivaled the shine of the Volvo's paint.

"I'll be waiting then."

With that, our whispered conversation ceased as he disappeared out of sight. Taking a deep breath, I made my way to the open front door and announced my presence.

"Anybody home?"

Billy's voice replied and ushered me inside.

"Go on back Bella, perhaps you can keep Charlie and my son from bellowing the roof off."

I began to walk past him, but paused by his wheelchair instead. For all of his misgivings and dire warnings, he had always only looked out for the Swan family's welfare.

Kneeling down, I took his hand and made a final request.

"Billy, I wanted to thank you for all you've done. You've been a phenomenal friend to Charlie and I...I hope that you'll help him through everything when I'm gone."

His withered face, aged with responsibility and disease hardened at the mention of my change.

"Are you sure you want to do this to him…to them both, Bella?"

Charlie's face, riddled with defeat and acceptance of my marriage swam past my eyes. No matter how much I hated to ever hurt him, he knew as well as I did this was coming.

"They'll come to terms with it, and I'll do what I can to ease the pain, but Charlie knows, and hopefully Jake will soon enough. I'm sorry for what this will do to him, and you in turn."

His face loosened and he released me from his grasp.

"I don't agree with your decision, but I suppose it is yours to make. Charlie will be all right, and Jake's stubbornness will have to wear off eventually. Why don't you go on back and see if you can get through his thick skull."

All my diversion techniques had run out, and the time was upon me. With a final deep breath, I stepped into Jake's tiny room, overcrowded with an injured wolf and a righteous dad.

I stood there awkwardly as their conversation immediately ceased.

"Uh, hi guys…"

"Bella! It's good of you to come see ol' Jakey. He and I were just having a little chat."

Jake's face rendered his opinion of my alleged treachery. If the situation weren't so tense, his petulant face would've made me laugh. This Herculean man was pouting like a five year old.

Moving my eyes from his face, I took in the extent of his injuries. He was healing quickly, though by no means as fast as Edward had. His arm was still bandaged, and judging by the fact that he was still bedridden, I now understood why he'd resorted to merely calling the Cullens.

Quietly I responded to Charlie.

"You didn't have to do this Dad, though I love you for it. But I'm just as much at fault for this as he is."

"Regardless, he knew you were engaged, and he still chose to put you in between a rock and a hard place with his demand. You're owed an apology, and the boy I know would give it."

Momentarily shamed, Jake's head fell before rising again with his big floppy affable grin.

"Sorry I made you make-out with me Bells."

I could have held a grudge and yelled at him for his flip apology, but all it would accomplish is make him the scapegoat. I was largely to blame, and if I didn't face that, none of us would get the much-needed closure.

I allowed myself to grant him forgiveness, and offered my own apology in return as I slipped into the easy rapport of our friendship.

"More like let you slobber on me. I suppose I was the one dumb enough to fall for it though. Nonetheless…I'm sorry for leading you on."

I felt like Jake and I had been caught fighting over a toy, and our parents had separated us, and were forcing us to apologize and play nicely. Especially after Charlie clapped us both on the shoulder, declaring, "See, that wasn't so hard, now was it?" and then leaving the room to let us "talk it out."

The sound of the shutting door reinforced our solitude, closing in the suffocating unease that permeated the air. Here we stood, two best friends haunted by the phantasms of kisses and hurt feelings gone by.

"Are you really still marrying him? Even after…everything?"

Jake's unsure voice rattled me. Rarely had I seen him as anything less than cocky and careless; arrogant in his beliefs and powers. Only a few days ago I had compared him to Hercules, taking up the slack of Atlas while he was away. For surely he had held me up and protected me, even before he began shifting. Despite his manipulations and misdeeds, at his core was an amazing strength that supported those he loved. I would always be grateful to him for keeping me together until my Atlas came back to me. Nothing he had done would ever erase that.

"I am."

Or I would be…

"I am sorry for tricking you into kissing me, but come on Bells, you felt something, you can't deny it. I know you love me. Your options are still open. Don't settle."

I didn't want to hurt him, but I felt a visual might reaffirm my next statement. I brought my empty wrists out in front of me, for him to see the decided lack of any adornment.

"Please don't make me give you answers you don't want to hear. I'm sick and tired of hurting people. You've been good to me Jake, but you can't say the same about me."

His eyes had honed in on my bare wrists while his mouth formed into a sneer.

"Is that why you're here, to rub it in my face? Or did he force you to take it off? Say the word Bella and I'll take you away from here."

Sighing, I realized this would be far more difficult than I had hoped. I had been rash in giving the bracelet to Edward, but even in the face of Jake's wrathful pain, I wouldn't take it back. Jake had indeed become my run-off guilt, and now it had clogged the sink. I abhorred hurting him, but if I didn't pull the plug now, we would all be left to fester in this morass of a situation.

"Have you ever seen Edward force me to do anything besides be safe? Even then he still begrudgingly let me see you, even if he didn't trust you farther than I could toss you. I'm not here to be cruel, but rather to tell you don't need to come rescue me. I have a fiancé who trusts me to fight my own battles, which is why I'm here alone."

He started to interrupt, but I held up a hand, needing to get this out once and for all.

"Charlie's right, you have to let this…let me…go. We're not good for each other. You held me together while Edward was gone, and I used you to do it. I needed someone completely different in every way, and with your easy-going nature and happy-go-lucky attitude you fit the bill. I knew you had feelings for me; you were entirely upfront about it, but still I led you on. I spent all my time with you, and practically treated you like my boyfriend, when all I felt was brotherly love. I did and do love you, Jake, but not…not like that."

"I can't let you go die for him Bells. It doesn't matter if you don't love me…"

I cut him off again. It was rude, but so was he.

"It does matter, because my love for Edward is all consuming; there's no room for anyone else. It means more to me than you know that you're fighting for me. But I've known for a long time someone was going to have to give up eventually. I've let this go on because I felt so damn guilty for doing this to you, and if I'm being brutally honest, I was keeping all avenues open. You routinely scored direct hits with your insinuations that Edward might leave again. Every time I almost let you go, that resonated too close to my own issues, that I forgave your latest jerky behavior, and came back."

"I knew I was being a tool, but competing against him, was like throwing punches under water. I had to fight dirty, and no matter how much of a dick I was, you forgave me, and came back one more time to let me know you weren't mad anymore. It was one more day with you while you still had a pulse. I can't say I didn't want to cause problems for you, because I did. But I never meant to hurt you…much."

I debated whether I should move closer. The part of me that still felt like his sister, wanted to erase the pain from his sunken shoulders. Yet the part that had his tongue down my throat hesitated, as I thought of what comforting Jake had done to Edward last time. Ultimately I compromised, and sat near his feet at the end of the bed, and awkwardly patted his knee. All his focus switched to my small pale hand on his trunk of a leg, causing me to recalculate and pull back my hand.

"We've gone pretty quid-pro-quo hurting each other, so I'd call us even. But the consequences of those actions spread to Edward, and nearly destroyed him. That's where I have to call game over. I almost lost him, physically and emotionally, after you and I kissed. The whole world turned to hell and yet simultaneously came into focus; everything narrowed to him. Nothing else can compare or compete with him, and even if someone could, it wouldn't matter. He's all I want in this world."

"So what, you're going to give up your whole life to be with him?"

"I am. Though I'm gaining far more than I'm sacrificing."

I could see the fight slowly going out of him. I hated weakening him, it was unnatural in creatures such as he and Edward, but I had come to learn what I could live with. Rightly or wrongly, Jake's pain fell into the category of guilt I could carry, while Edward's did not.

"I could make it impossible for you to kill yourself for him. The treaty still stands, and he can't change you without our consent."

I stared into his normally kind eyes, refusing to break contact, and found what I had hoped still lingered inside him.

"You could. But you won't, not if I'm the one asking you not to do it. And we both know that if you agree and we leave the area, Sam won't object sine you're the real Alpha."

He rallied his last shred of aggravation for a final objection.

"Why the hell would I do that? It's letting him win."

I ignored my own sense and took his hand.

"The competition ended before it even began, as you well know. And you would do it because it would be your last act of friendship to me. In return, I'll give you my own gift."

His hand had linked with mine, and despite our past, I inherently wanted to pull it back. My palm belonged in Edward's grasp alone. Yet, I could afford to grant him this final act of kindness.

"What are you going to give me Bella?"

His voice was far too husky for my comfort, but with my father nearby I felt secure.

"Your freedom. I'll release you from all your ties to me, all the responsibility you've felt to keep me human, and this unfair hold I have upon you. I'll let you go live your life, and move on to a girl who will be able to give you her whole heart. I'll stop consuming your life with everything that will, and could never have been. I'll free you Jake."

A tormented growl tore from his chest as he sat up to face me directly.

"Please, Bells, I need a hug…"

A bittersweet smile formed on my face as I embraced him. Figures, at the last moment he learns to ask first. His fiery heat enveloped my small frame as he clutched me tightly to him. I returned it the best I could, needing to say goodbye to my friend who had risen to the challenge of dealing with an overwrought heartbroken girl. Who had protected her from both the monsters and herself, and did it all with a happy smile on his face. His manipulations and passive aggressiveness didn't matter anymore, because as we held on to each other, we were letting go.

"I'll miss you."

I squeezed him tighter, trying to convey my gratitude.

"I'll miss you too, and thank you, for… everything."

His head turned into my cheek, and I felt his mouth gently kiss it.

Hot breath rapidly exhaled against my neck as he sealed my fate.

"I'll give you your freedom too. Be happy Bells, you're no longer bound by the treaty."

**Chapter Notes:**

**References:**

Don Quixote

Peter Pan

John Mayer rant

I hope this chapter answers a lot of your questions from the last. Edward had some legitimate reasons for saying they weren't getting married, even if he should have talked them over with Bella first. Now as you see, she chose not to share her opinions with him on the matter, but keep in mind she is still referring to him as her fiancé…. More will continue to be revealed as we progress.

That Jake scene was probably not what you all thought it would be, but Bella would hardly get closure from just yelling at him. It's also very out of character for her to hold a grudge, and it would hurt her, to hurt him. But as she said, she knows whose pain she's capable of living with, and Jake's is one of them. The kindest thing she could ever do is let him go, and in a return of the Jake she first befriended, he let her. I know some of you won't like it, but this was an obscenely hard chapter for me, and I hope you can at least see where I'm coming from in my reasoning.

In general Atlas Shrugged news, I have made a playlist of all the songs mentioned in this story, and will put the link on my profile. I will also be making a chapter-by-chapter playlist and will post that as well.

I also want to take a moment to give you a story recommendation. I have a lot of love for the canon /AU genre, and no one brings the Cullens to light in the same way as Giselle-lx. Her story, Ithaca is Gorges (www[.]fanfiction[.]net/s/4988866/1/) deals with the family's time away from Forks in New Moon. I promise, you will feel as if you never knew Carlisle before you read it.

A quick note about the title, I'm using a rather antiquated definition of 'tilting' in this chapter. In this context it throws back to a jousting reference, in which two men compete against each other, it also implies at attempt at winning or losing something..

Please continue to review and tell me what you thought of this chapter. How did you like the Jake scene? Did Edward's explanation make sense? What do you think Bella's got up her sleeve? What about Papa Charlie giving Jake hell? Anything you want to talk about is cool with me, I just love seeing what you all think!


	9. Today

I stepped through the door of the mansion, surprised Edward hadn't met me at the stoop. The enormous great room of the first floor was devoid of all occupants. I had rarely been here without a Cullen escorting me, and had certainly never seen it so empty. I suppose it had looked like this when I had visited while they were away, but I had never worked up the courage to look inside.

The large space, decorated in Esme's minimalist style seemed cold and barren without the Cullens sprawled throughout it. The warmth and comfort I was filled with every time I came in the house was missing. I had been sorely wrong when I had said the mansion was home; it was the family within it that made it such.

"Anybody home? I've got some pretty big news if anyone's interested…"

Listening for them was futile, since they made no sound unless they so chose.

"I'm in my office Bella, come on up."

Carlisle's voice resonated through the empty rooms, far louder than he would have normally spoken.

I traipsed up the stairs, checking the small phone Edward had given me for any messages. I had texted him earlier to tell him Charlie was taking me to dinner before bringing me back. He had responded quickly, saying he would see me soon. I had no further calls or texts explaining his absence, which was exceedingly odd.

I came across Carlisle's office, and stepped into the room. Instantly the odd emptiness vibe the house had given off was diminished. The room smelled of a strange combination of musty books and antiseptic from the hospital that followed Carlisle around. Strangely enough, it comforted me in much the same way as the smell of Charlie's cruiser; Old Spice, donuts, and fish. Soon I would only be able to take solace in Carlisle's scent, but I would never forget the fragrance of my fathers' spaces.

"How did you possibly get the house to yourself tonight?"

Carlisle guiltily dropped his feet from his desk and plopped the book he'd been reading on his lap down. I couldn't help but smile at the fact Esme would've had his head for scuffing up the antique desk with his shoes.

"It does seem like a small miracle, doesn't it? Esme and the girls took off on a 'super secret mission,' as Alice called it, and Emmett and Jasper went hunting. I assumed Edward was with you, as usual."

I moseyed around the office, on edge about Edward's disappearance.

"I had told him a little over an hour ago that I was on my way home; that was the last I heard from him."

"Despite the little scene you saw earlier, we do try to treat Edward like a big boy. He has, after all, lived without us a time or two, so I can't quite call him home for curfew just yet."

I shrugged my shoulders in embarrassment. I'd been dumped as his fiancé, and I was still tracking his every movement like a shrew of a wife.

"It must be difficult for you to balance being a father figure without stepping on their toes."

"You would think so, but I've found it to be effortless. That's not to say I don't botch things routinely, with Rose especially, but even at its worst, it's always worth it. I'd take a houseful of married moody teenagers any day over centuries of mindless solitary wandering."

"I suppose after 105 years you would settle into the role fairly well, but it comes so naturally to you, I tend to forget you had two hundred some odd years by yourself. I guess I only ever think about Edward's years of loneliness."

"Yes, I dare say 274 years was trite long to take to find myself. Though in the end all it took were two sets of green eyes, and there I was, at long last."

I had made my way to the Volturi painting, still unable to glance at it without shuddering. It was hard to rectify the man before me with those eerie monsters in Italy.

"Would you change any of it? Or wonder what would have happened if you'd done things differently?"

"It's only human to have regrets, Bella, but they're futile. We can only get to where we are now by following the linear pattern of the past. One change and I might not have my wife or my children. If I were to alter any of that, I would no longer be who I am."

"So even though you were alone for longer than any of them have been alive, it all ended up being worth it?"

His kind eyes understood the bush I was beating around, and he couldn't help but comfort me.

"Was I miserable and aching for someone to love? Unfathomably so. Did I wish with all my heart for redemption from the desolation? More than you could imagine. Yet it means nothing now, because it made it possible for me to hold the joy I have now."

He stood, and walked to his shelf to pull down a book. I wanly smiled, Carlisle, for all his nobility, was inherently a nerd who lived to cross-reference.

"There's a writer, Kahlil Gibran, you've most likely only heard of him via John Lennon's plagiarism, but he has a line that might summate the point better than I can:

'_Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you._'"

I was flooded with thoughts of the pain Edward and I went through when we were apart. We were nothing but aching voids barely functioning in the world. My mind immediately jumped to the pain in which I put him through this week, and to be fair, past few months. Inevitably, I even thought of the boy I had left behind mere hours ago, whose heart was torn out, as he lost the girl he loved and his best friend in one fell swoop. Between the three of us, we had carved out a quarry of sorrow.

"What…what if the happiness to come isn't enough? How can you know it will fill all the holes?"

Carlisle gave up pretending not to know what and who I was referring, and he led me to sit with him on his overstuffed leather loveseat.

"You did what you had to do with Jake today, and I'm not even privy to what you said, but I know you. Whatever you said, I know it was done kindly and with empathy."

"I told him the same thing I'd been saying for months; Edward was it for me. I just refused to let him make me doubt myself, or my decisions anymore. I think he realized that when it came down to it, I'd let Jake hurt before I sacrificed Edward's happiness again. I'm not sure that could be called compassionate though."

His body was turned towards mine, and he patted my knee in reassurance.

"And do you regret that decision?"

I vehemently shook my head.

"I would have to have made a conscious decision to act for me to regret it. It never occurred to me otherwise, in this past week, than to let Jake go entirely. I hate that he's suffering at my hands, but more than anything, I hope he finds happiness one day. I pray that I didn't leave him bitter and spiteful to the point that he closes himself off. I almost lost my own future, and I don't want that for him."

"I suspect that you're concerned about expressing that to Edward and how he'll react?"

"I'm more worried about the fact that when Edward comes home, I know I'll barely think of it. That doesn't make me a particularly wonderful person, Carlisle, to step over people to get what I want."

Carlisle; compassionate, steadfast, and wise Carlisle, outright laughed at me. He rose from the couch and drew me with him, as he wrapped his arm loosely around the back of my shoulders. I had seen him do as much, countless times to his children, and the small instinctual sign of acceptance created a warm glow in my chest.

We walked around his desk and into the connecting library, that held the non-medical texts. He led me towards the far wall behind the twin leather chairs. For perhaps the first time, I was in this room at night with the lights on, and was able to see what I had thought was just a design effect on the walls. I had been quite mistaken, for as I drew closer I saw that the walls were made of a different type of wood than the beams in the room. Against it, were what had to have been hundreds of small coins, all attached, with eight displayed more prominently than the rest.

"I want you to look closely at that wall Bella. There are 362 coins attached to it, one for every year I've been a vampire. They represent my life span, the change that I have seen, and are a reminder of every year that I 'stepped over people to get what I want.' And there is only one coin per year, if I had quarter for each time I was a less than wonderful person, every wall in this house would be covered."

He gave me a moment to take in my surroundings, and study the coins. They were comprised of a number of metals; copper, silver, gold. Towards the beginning there were a wide variety of values, until they all tapered into quarters. There were pieces from various English counties, German states, Italian city-states, French provinces, Spanish cities, American colonies, and eventually United States federal currency. This was a wall of world history and one man's endless immortality.

"Why quarters?"

"They're all parts of a whole, and I'm a sentimental fool."

I smiled at him in response and continued to study Carlisle's life.

I stepped closer to the wall, to make out the patterns on each, and get a better glimpse at the ones that were mounted on wooden blocks. I had difficulty rationalizing why some were more prominent than others, especially ones that had repeating designs and were close together. There were three that were almost back to back that stood out, then none for a short while, until two more with only one space between them. I pulled back to see that there were three others, but were quite some distance away from this cluster. There was one at the very beginning, one in between, and one almost at the end.

Confused, I turned to Carlisle to see him faintly smiling and waiting for me to figure it out myself.

"Are these what I think they are?"

He nodded and removed the first of the clump from the wall, to hand to me.

"Those mean a bit more to me than the others. Each of those years represented when my family grew. That particular group also serves as a reminder of my most self-serving actions."

I looked more closely at the coin in my hand. It's front portrayed a statuesque and bare-breasted Lady Liberty. Beneath her feet was the date, 1918; the year Carlisle turned Edward. She held a shield in one hand and an olive branch in the other. For some reason, this palpable piece of Edward's history left tears spilling down my cheeks. In my hand was proof of the year that made it possible for Edward to one day find me.

"It's fitting for him, for when he was just a boy and after you changed him. He's always been a protector; whether it is of the peace, innocent bystanders, or his loved ones. Even when it destroys him and strips him bare."

Carlisle's arm slipped around me again, as a subtle sign of support.

"By that statement alone I see he's finally trusted you to take him for who and what he is, a good man who deserves to be loved."

"I can't help but wonder if it's enough. I've done some horrible things to him, and we're past it, and better than we ever have been, but he's called off the wedding because he doesn't think I want it. You know how much he desires marriage and he's giving it up for me, because I panicked about what others would think."

"Come here Bella, there's another coin you need to see."

He walked to the far end of the wall, and plucked another wooden block down. It was an average every day quarter, with no special markings, except the date, 1988. The year I was born had been mounted for display on the family wall.

"I had plans to do it myself, but shortly before your 18th birthday, Edward came to me and asked that I do it. He had wanted to bring you up here, and give you this one priceless gift, a clear sign of your place in this family."

The tears streamed down my face now, as I contemplated how much that would have meant to me in the proceeding months without him. Even if it was only a small piece of metal and wood, it was proof that our lives had crossed paths for a brief time, and now for eternity.

Carlisle sensing I was beyond words, continued on.

"The wall is removable as you can see, and I never leave a home without it. It traveled with us to Ithaca and hung in this room's equivalent there. A day never passed that I didn't come home from the hospital or teaching to find Edward lurking before it, caressing this coin. As you know, he left shortly thereafter, with this tucked into his pocket. He returned it to me at the airport at the same time you returned him."

He had carried me with him wherever he went, taking solace and embracing the anguish of this small sign of my existence. I could see him using it as a talisman, the date of my birth, for all the reasons he should stay away. It proved to him that I was living and it was the only part of me he could keep without changing that fact.

I held the two sconces in my hands, ebullient in the symbolism of him returning it to Carlisle. It signified, that even then, he had begun to come to terms with keeping me for eternity. My coin joined the others, resoundingly declaring that regardless of his values, he wanted me more.

"Even at the lowest times of your relationship, Edward has been happier in this life than he ever has been before. Of course he wants to marry you. He wants to shout to the world and God that you are his wife. But I swear to you, he is not holding back for your sake. Let that coin show you that, you are everything he wants in this world."

I smiled through my tears, as Carlisle offered me his handkerchief. Of course he had one at the ready. After handing him back a soggy mess, I wrapped my arms around him and finally grasped why Edward loved and respected him so very much. He returned it with a fatherly embrace that touched me as much as Charlie sticking up for me had.

"Would you help me, Carlisle?"

He pulled back, and look of, 'obviously' crossed his face.

"I still want to marry Edward, I did even when he called it off, but I got this big idea to surprise him with a wedding…"

"Yes, I surmised as much, what with the girls running off, notebooks firmly tucked in between their arms, and giggling about the exact shade of blue you had envisioned."

Of course Alice took my decision for blue and stretched it to the maximum lengths.

"I had wanted to give him what we both wanted and teach him a bit of a lesson about making all the decisions for us, but in fact, good intentions or not, that's what I'm doing to him. I don't want to take his choice away, and for that I need your help."

I held the two symbols of Edward and I up to him and made a request.

"Will you help me track down another two coins from these years? I can't offer him a ring, but I need to give him something when I ask him to marry me."

Carlisle blinked in an oddly human gesture of surprise. Then a million-dollar smile lit his face, radiating his joy for his son.

"No I won't help you find your own, because these are now yours."

His hands covered mine, wrapping my own hands around the blocks. My eyes shot up to meet his, trying to back track. I couldn't take them from his wall of his life and accomplishments.

"You've had this for eighty-eight years…Carlisle, I know what Edward's quarter in particular means to you. It was the first piece of your whole. I can't take that from you, but thank you, for you to even offer means more than you can imagine."

"Bella, these coins portray the constants in my life. They have been held and rubbed in times of trouble and eased my worries as a reminder of my family. For you to gift these to my son, on the day you make his inner most desires come true, would fill me with as much joy as when I first hung that coin. There's nothing I wouldn't do to be able to have a small part in that gift. Please, take them. They are yours to give."

"Thank you, it seems so pitiful in comparison, but I can think of nothing more fitting, than combining the dates when it became possible for us to meet. If you don't mind terribly, I'd like to take it one step further, and conjoin them; so all sides of Edward are connected to all sides of me. I want to literally show him, that when I ask him to marry me, that all of me, wants all of him, the good and bad; all of it makes it us."

Carlisle gently kissed the top of my head. When I glanced at him, his eyes were wide and mouth heavy as he rapidly swallowed. Before he could speak, a new voice chimed in.

"I bet Rosie could weld it for you, she wields a torch with such delicacy, you'll never even see where one ends and the other begins."

Emmett had joined us, apparently back from his hunting trip, and miraculously not making cracks at my attempt at arts and crafts.

Carlisle took the wood blocks out of my hand and effortlessly removed the coin attached to it, before returning them to me. Not even a splinter of wood or glue remained on the back of it, as I held what normally reside in my pocket as chump change.

"I think it's a beautiful idea that won't be lost on Edward."

"Yeah, maybe you can hang it on an old shoelace for him, and you two can have matching necklaces"

"Don't be jealous Em, that your wife is as low maintenance as I am."

An evil grin rose all the way into his curls.

"What you call low maintenance I call slummin' it. I gotta tell you, Jaz and I had a bet as to whether you'd choose the Fuzz Bucket just because he drives your kind of car: old and shitty."

"One ride on Edward's crotch rocket converted me. I like my men sleek, fast, and sparkly now."

Emmett's guffaws and Carlisle's muffled chuckles reminded me that in my attempt for witty repertoire I had just made sex joke in front of the man I had been having a fatherly bonding experience with all evening.

"Oh I can guarantee he'll be fast…"

Carlisle's laughter died off to an amused smile as he tried to reign in his burly son.

"Emmett…she just agree to take Edward, don't scare her off now…."

It was my turn for my eyes to bulge out of my head, floored by Carlisle's teasing.

"Don't let his 'Good Doctor,' routine fool you, Bella, he's as bad as the rest of us when he wants to be…"

Carlisle's eyes fell to the ground as he imitated Edward's awkward shuffle, but the grin never left his face. Nurture or nature, I saw Edward in him in that moment.

"I will neither confirm nor deny your statement Emmett, but back to the topic at hand, will you ask Rose to please weld these? I imagine she won't be back until well after Bella is asleep."

Emmett took the quarters from me, and carefully tucked them into his pocket, before inexplicably looking shy.

"You know, I'm pretty good with wood…well better than you could imagine actually…but I grew up in the Smoky Mountains, no self-respecting boy didn't know how to carve. If you want, I could make a box for you to showcase it in."

I can't say I ever expected Emmett to have the patience for carpentry, it seemed more in keeping with Jasper, but I imagined this was one more way I had underestimated the Cullens. Unfortunately, he took my shocked pause as doubt of his talent.

"I can understand if you don't want me to, but I wheedled that mahogany keepsake box on Edward's desk. It was kind of my way of saying thanks for him battling Rosalie to help keep me in line during my newborn years. I guess you could say I was a bit of a bear to live with, and Rose was barely out of the stage herself, so she didn't do much to reel me in. He and Rosie fought like hell cats over it, but he was the one that took me out hunting and taught me to contain myself."

I vaguely thought he might have failed on the last part, but even Edward could only do so much.

"Anyways, when I finally had a hold on my strength, I was able to make that box without breaking it, and well…I guess I'd like to make you one. I'll carve it out of the stick that you finally pulled out of Edward's ass to make him a bit more likable these days."

I couldn't help but laugh, because face it, Emmett just couldn't help himself, even when he was trying to be sweet.

"Em, every project needs your box expertise, though, I'd prefer it without the butt stick, if you don't mind."

I could have elaborated, but Emmett didn't need me to; his roaring laugh proved that, though I wasn't entirely sure what was so hilarious.

I kissed his cheek, and thanked them both before excusing myself. Edward still hadn't returned, and I wanted to take what time I had to wash off Jake's smell. I fully planned to tell him I had hugged Jake, but there was no reason to bring it into his room.

I made my way up to our bedroom, stripping off my clothes as I went, and climbed into the enormous shower. I groaned in pleasure as this emotionally charged day ran down the drain. From Cliffside leaps, marriage and sex embargos, werewolf closure, and bonding with the men folk in my life, I was wiped.

Yet I still couldn't help but wonder where Edward would be. Somewhere in the back of my mind, where paranoia lies, I suspected Jake of foul play. I knew Edward could protect himself against any brash attack Jake might lay for him, but I desperately hoped it hadn't come to that. I wanted to go into my new life with the bittersweet goodbye we had shared today.

As I stepped out of the shower, clean, if not refreshed, I tried to chase away my idiotic concerns. The alert would have been sounded long before if he trouble were brewing. God I hoped it didn't have anything to do with the wolf pack…Jake had given his word, but it may not count if it wasn't granted to a Cullen.

I dried off, working up quite a huff, but not wanting to cave and call him. I didn't doubt him in the least, but rather things were still so newly fixed, I couldn't help a little anxiety when I was left in the dark. I pulled on the button down Edward had been wearing earlier, and a pair of panties when it hit me.

Here I was, pacing at home, while Edward was MIA, possibly with the wolves. I was irrationally worrying over his welfare and thinking the worst. The irony of the situation was beyond the pale; Edward and I had changed places…he was even off riding around on a motorcycle.

I let the self-deprecating amusement ease my irrationalities, as I walked out of the bathroom.

And there stood Edward, dropping his keys and phone on his dresser, shrugging off his tight black leather jacket, and kicking off his boots. Immediately his empty hands ran through his hair as his strangely weary body emitted a long groan of exasperation.

I merely stood there, taking in the casual routine I couldn't wait to repeat every night for a thousand years to come.

"I have never met anyone, even Alice, in my very long life, who talks as much as Seth."

That was most assuredly not the explanation about the wolves I had been expecting, and my face registered as much. Regardless, he'd been in front of me for about 57 seconds and I still hadn't touched him. I quickly, or slowly to him, jaunted over to him and grabbed his hand, to pull him to the bed.

I backed his knees up to the bed and pushed, signaling I wanted him to sit down. He did, and I grabbed his foot and tugged on his pants. Edward smirk became lopsided, as he stood on one foot, leaving the other in my hand. Without a care he unbuckled his pants, pushing them off his hips, and revealed his charcoal boxers. With a strange burst of grace, I yanked his jeans off, and started on his shirt.

It hadn't escaped me earlier that he had gone all out for the Ducati ride; dark wash jeans, heavy boots, a snug black button down, and matching jacket. He'd even whipped out the Ray Bans, in order to make the Quileute more comfortable, or so he said. I think he was trying to tell me he didn't mind if I went back to ogling him. Either that or secretly wanted to look hotter on a bike, which he did, without a shadow of a doubt.

I still hadn't said a word as I stripped him, but the fact that he hadn't either, spoke far louder. When he was finally down to his boxers, I put my hands on his chest and shoved. Being the quick learner that he is, he settled himself in the middle of the bed with open arms. I scurried after him, with my limbs getting caught in covers and what not, but not stopping until I had curled myself into his arms.

His bare arms locked around me as I rubbed my cheek against his chest, finally letting the weariness of the day ease.

"Now, tell me how…OOF!"

Edward apparently was done with me being in charge, and thought a better place for me to lie was directly on top of his chest. He had swooped me up, mid-sentence and artfully arranged me across him, with all our limbs aligned.

"Are you going to tell me what that was about? Not that I mind, but I thought you'd taken _that_ off the table this morning. Am I really that irresistible?"

The devil himself couldn't compare to Edward when he was trying to be charming. I wouldn't cave that easily, though I would give in to a hand, or dump truck, full of kisses to tide me over.

"I had a moment of déjà vu, in which I was once again waiting for you to come home, but this time it was you who had snuck off without a word to play with your wolfy bff's. Trying to get you naked just pushed it over the edge into nostalgia."

"Mmm, it seems you're in quite the state of undress yourself. I can't quite find the desire to mind though."

Chilled breath blew down my slightly parted shirt before equally cooled lips followed in its wake. I thought our positioning would hinder his path, but he merely slid himself lower underneath me, to trace every exposed inch of skin he could find. Lips, kisses, nibbles, and not so hesitant licks paid me back for every minute of teasing I had delivered earlier this afternoon. I had known Edward was competitive, but sweet mercy I wanted to forfeit already if only to finally bring his mouth up to mine.

Unable to suffer in silence as he had, frustrated mewls mixed with outright moans as he reached my breastbone. He seemed content to linger there indefinitely, as he nosed around, taking his sweet time.

"Damn..it…Edward..get…back…up…here!"

With a final string of kisses up my throat, he scooted himself back up to my mouth, and promptly devoured it. I didn't know if he was being playful, dominant, or plain horny, but I eagerly wanted to take it all and give him the same. I poured all my myriad of emotions into the kiss. It was furious and desperate, but eventually slowed and gentled, as our relief at being back together passed between us. Whether it be growl or sighed filled, you could feel the energy crackling off us as we reunited.

Right as my lips began to numb, Edward regretfully released my mouth. Through my dazed sight, I was met with a sheepish, instead of shy, expression.

"Hi."

I laughed at him, and us in general. Here we were with important matters to discuss, and I tore his clothes off, and he nuzzled my chest for the first twenty minutes he was home. I snuggled into his chest and half-heartedly tried to steer the conversation.

"So how did you end up hanging with Seth?"

His chest rumbled underneath me as he spoke, and I busied myself drawing pictures on him.

"Ugh."

"That bad, huh?"

He sighed, and it fluttered my hair. I was addicted to the reactions of my body from his actions, whether they be big or small.

"No, merely weary. I don't exactly socialize often, especially not on my own, in groups. It was disconcerting to find myself tucked into a small house on the reservation, filled with young wolves who had been trained to kill me….all telling stories about Emmett."

My laughter fell out of me with no regards to my own wishes. Of course the wolves would have liked Emmett, he was the only one close to their size and crassness.

"How did you get invited to this Em party?"

"It was all rather impromptu. I dropped you off and had barely gone a mile on the bike before my phone rang. Fearing you needed me, I snapped it open, only to hear Sam's voice asking if I minded checking on Seth while I was there. He remembered you'd told him I'd been to med school, and Alpha orders or not, they were having a hell of a time keeping the pup down. Sam was concerned it was inhibiting his healing process."

I nodded, "So you went..."

"Seth practically wagged when I saw him. I checked him over, and found him to be as solid as a rock, like all the rest of them, and in a few days time, his bones will finish up mending. It's actually quite remarkable considering he'd been under a rock-slide. Both his tibia and fibula had been shattered…."

I had another case of déjà vu, as I watched Edward take on Carlisle's excitement over all new medical discoveries. He was demonstrating with his hands, and throwing around terms that made me queasy, having had many of those injuries myself. A few minutes passed before Edward suspected my nodding and smiling was predominantly feigned, as I tried to keep up with his enthusiasm.

"Sorry. Regardless he'll be fine soon, but he felt the need to keep me there, because I was chalk full of information about his hero. 'Dude! Emmett lifted this boulder that was like half the size of the mountain! I was gonna _die_ and he flicked it away like a bugger or something!''

Tears of laughter were streaming down my face, as Edward said the word 'bugger' for perhaps the first and last time in his life.

He pinched my thigh in retaliation, thinking that his butterfly-light dig would shut me up.

"I'm so very glad you find this amusing. All the younger wolves poured in, wanting to hear stories about Emmett the Bugger Boulder Flicking Vampire, and Seth wouldn't promise to rest until I had regaled him with some of the more colorful tales."

I leaned up and kissed his nose.

"Aww, I'm sorry you had to make friends. You could have left anyways."

"Yeah, but he's a good kid, who was caught up in a fight he had no business being in. The least I could do was play nice for a few hours. I'm sorry I didn't call, I was able to reply to your text, and I thought I would escape shortly thereafter, but then the kids wanted see the phone, and ended up playing with it all night… I never should have put Tetris on it…"

Uh oh. Now I knew why he was grouchy. Despite being generous to a fault, Edward had a few problems sharing. The Volvo being Exhibit A. Nobody drives that car.

I ran my hands into his hair, and dragged my body higher.

"So you were trapped in a house of hero worshipping juvenile werewolves who played with your stuff and stunk to high heaven? Do you need me to make up for your horrible night?"

His bottom lip stuck out in strange amalgamation of a pout and anticipatory smirk.

In retaliation I gave it the briefest of kisses, before pulling back. His responding growl literally made my stomach bounce, and I hastily retreated from the predatory gleam in his eye.

"Not so fast, I have news, and you can just listen to it, grouchy-pants."

"I do too, actually. Though I've been remiss in asking how your meeting with Jake went. I assume it went fine, since Billy showed up not too long after I arrived at the Clearwater house, and I didn't hear anything untoward in his thoughts.

I sat up on his chest, so as not to be distracted, but found the view from afar to be as decadent as up close.

"It went better than you'd think. Charlie's interference paved the way and took the brunt of the fight out of him. It was difficult because he was more or less resisting to keep me alive among other things. He finally gave in when I made it clear that my options ended after I met you, and there was never a matter of choosing between the two of you."

I paused and thought back to the strange night in the tent, where I thought I had heard Edward saying he didn't know if I loved Jake.

"You do know that right? I never considered him over you, for even the fleetest of moments."

His hands fell to my hips and clutched them firmly.

"I do now, and if I had dug past my own issues, I probably would have known then, because you never wavered in wanting to be with me. I more wondered if it wouldn't be healthier for you to be with him, but I don't see the point of trading one supernatural creature for another. Not to mention I was deluding myself into thinking I'd be a big of enough man to let you go."

I clasped my hands over his on my hips and bent my body over his.

"Yours. Only Yours."

His smile lit his face, as he flipped us over, never relinquishing our hands.

"I know. And Sam gave me permission to break the treaty and make it permanent."

I gaped. Way to steal my thunder!!

"WHAT? No! I got Jake to let you change me! I was all excited to have been proactive!"

"Jake agreed? What did you do, promise him your first born?"

Apparently neither of us took well to being thwarted, even if the end result was the same. But slowly, it sunk in, that we had a green light to spend forever together, and we rolled around the bed, laughing like children and playing like lovers.

The night slipped away, without acknowledgement from Edward or I, seeing as we were too wrapped up in one another.

No matter how overwrought this day may have been, it too would go down as one to cherish.

Today I freed my best friend.

Today my father fought for me.

Today my new family accepted me.

Today I knew that one day soon…

I would be Mrs. Edward Cullen.

Chapter Notes:

References:

Kahlil Gibran did indeed write the first line of the Beatle's song, "Julia," John Lennon liked it so much he stole it.

Elton John- "I Guess That's Why the Call it the Blues"

Also all the coin descriptions are accurate, and tomorrow evening, will be posted on the twilighted thread for Atlas Shrugged.

I hope you all liked this chapter, I'm particularly fond of it. Please review and let me know, I'm a bit wary because reviews for the last chapter dropped DRASTICALLY. Which was bizarre, since the chapter before it had a record number.


	10. Longing

**A/N: **

**1: Neither _Twilight_ nor _Atlas Shrugged_ belong to me. They belong to Stephenie Meyers and Ayn Rand respectively.**

**2: A HUGE thank you to everyone for waiting patiently. We're at two weeks to the day of the last update, and I feel like a tool about it. Long story short, started a job, and I'm working out the scheduling kinks. I hope to go back to once a week though.**

**3:Thank you to my secret keepers, you know who you are. :)**

**4: Uh, Surprise?**

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I was stretched across the bottom of the bed, basking in the sun's poor excuse for warmth. I had been lying here for hours, as the light ever so slowly rose high enough to reach me. Now in its midday peak, it bathed my barely covered body, and sent prisms bouncing off the walls, the bed, and Bella's eyelids. Yet still, she barely twitched and spoke not a word.

It had been almost a year since I had last seen her so at peace.

Therefore logically, she needed to be thoroughly worn out before bed to insure a restful night's sleep. It was in the best interest of her slumber that we kiss all night...

Damn. Even I wasn't buying my warped rationality. The fact of the matter was, for the first time since that damned and blessed Biology class, I wasn't terrified of hurting her; I wasn't guilt-ridden for ruining her life; I wasn't grappling with uncertainty: I was ecstatic.

She was sprawled in the middle of the bed, taking up an alarming amount of space for one so small, with limbs and hair akimbo, and an ever-so-contented smile on her face.

She was blissful. She was perfect. She was _mine_.

For that reason alone, I stayed at the far end of the bed, laying in my puddle of sunshine, which was a weak substitute for her. We had been tangled together for hours, rolling around and cuddling until nearly four in the morning. During which time, a whisper in the back of my mind told me to let her sleep, to shield her from my chill, to do what's best for her.

But if yesterday, and the preceding days had taught me anything, Bella resoundingly thought I was what was best for her.

I was whom she wanted.

I was _hers.  
_  
In light of that, I was more or less content to lay here and marvel at her sleeping form as the hours passed.

As long as she woke up within the next 13 minutes, because the urge to touch her was rapidly becoming unbearable.

I had unleashed the greedy monster inside, and all it wanted was Bella. It wanted to feel her all over and love her through forever. She had chosen me, and I would cherish her choice, her sacrifice, and her love. I wanted to wrap it around me and proverbially drown in it.

I wanted her to wake up so we could rehash last night in intricate detail.

As her breathing showed no sign of quickening, I made the executive decision to make her breakfast in bed. It only seemed fair; kill yourself for me, have a complimentary egg plate.

I leapt out of bed to go sully my olfactory senses with poultry products, and promptly paused. Strewn throughout our room were our clothes. My jeans had been thrown near her shirt; my button down was hanging off the lampshade, and her bra and panties left a trail to the bathroom. It was messy and possibly indecent to the outside observer.

To me, it was a sign of two lives intertwined. Type A neat-freak tendencies aside, I wanted to greet each day with such a sight. I was weary of scurrying out her window and lying to her father; of having to return her to him every night; of having any boundaries in our lives.

I wanted someone to enter this room and see our debauched disaster and know it was ours.

Smiling, I arbitrarily threw on my clothes, knowing full well I'd slip them off as soon as I returned, and vaulted out of the room.

The house was surprisingly quiet, both in my mind and around the perimeter. Carlisle had slipped away to work earlier, and my sisters and mother had returned only to leave again rapidly. Emmett and Jasper weren't terribly far away, but far enough I was unable to get a read on them.

That was inevitably purposeful. Those two routinely ran to the edge of my abilities to gossip like old crones, and somehow thought their wives didn't notice. It allowed them to catch up on the latest family relationship drama, as if it were one of those daytime dramas Esme pretends she doesn't enjoy.

She has a disturbing predilection for hospital soap operas that prompt her to give Rose's infamous 'stink eye' to the nursing staff every time she visits Carlisle.

I swear those two ended up with the strangest interpretation of the women's lib movement. The Cullen women are frighteningly territorial of their men, oftentimes far more so than the men themselves. If Bella's absurd jealousy of Tanya was any sign of what's to come, she'd fit in exceedingly well.

The part of my brain that I had used an abominable excuse last fall, that section that was so easily distracted, was acutely focused on envisioning Bella and Tanya meeting one day. I wasn't so crass as to picture the type of cat fight Rose routinely gets involved in, but rather a few kitten growls and numerous claim staking kisses. Fortunately, as this disturbingly normal male fantasy played in my mind, I was able to multitask and get an omelet started.

It would never fail to irk me that I couldn't cook at my usual speed. I had once debated trying to input more gas in order to get a hotter flame, and thereby cook faster on this stove. It would've reduced cooking time by half, but indubitably lit Bella's hair on fire. I figured an extended period of time at the stove was a better price than a girlfriend with third degree burns.

While I waited ever so impatiently, whispers of voices fluttered through my mind as the family descended. Each and every one of them deliberately focusing on the arcane and obscure as they approached. Alice was singing a Edith Pilaf in her original French, Rose was tracing the Stuart dynasty, Emmett was dissecting a bear's anatomy, and Jasper was reading Clausewitz in his mind. And as a one, they all bypassed the kitchen, entered through an upstairs balcony, and invaded our room.

Sly, they most assuredly, were not.

Bella's heart and breathing sped up as they awoke her, prompting a growl from me. I had very specific plans for that task, and I was not keen on being thwarted. If I wouldn't most assuredly destroy the eggs in my absence, I would've raced upstairs to give them hell. Instead I continued cooking at a sloth's pace and settled into shamelessly eavesdrop.

Unfortunately, not a word was spoken, and the mental blocks remained firm. It wasn't until Alice was momentarily distracted by the sparkles, that they broke down enough for me to get a glimpse of a gold notebook.

I smirked at the thought that they were still under the impression that I was unaware of their furtive activities. Of course I immediately sobered at the prospect of them drawing Bella into their illicit planning. I understood that having a mind reader in the family was quite the nuisance, but really, must they work so hard to exclude me that accessories are needed? It had been a game in the past, to break through their shields to discern the secrets, a type of sibling rivalry that kept us amused throughout the years. Yet with the inclusion of my fiance, it took it to a new level, one in which I was decidedly not invited.

It was with that thought, that my childish pouting came to a crashing halt. Even though it remained only in my own psyche, I was unable to stop calling her my fiancee. The only term I preferred more was _my wife._

Hearing Charlie recall his tale to Jacob about Bella announcing our marriage had made me burn. My anti-nuptials and stubborn girl had brazenly faced her fear of other people's opinions, and told her father that she was marrying the man he most wanted her to stay away from. I managed to pick through the pieces of his memory as he recalled the moment. I saw her matter of factly laying it before him without hesitation or seemingly any care of his ire. Standing before Charlie, was the Bella who raced to Italy to save me, and the one who punched He-Who-Must-Be-Neutered, when he kissed her. She was magnificent, without a blush or stutter in sight.

I was torn in my decision to call off the wedding. I yearned to marry the girl who stood up for us, even when she was ludicrously unsure that I still desired her. Yet I was unable to justify putting her in the position to go against her ingrained anti-matrimonial nature. Her parents had given her little faith in the matter, and I was disgusted with myself for bargaining with her for it. What we had called compromise, was naught but mutual demands neither of us had been ready to concede.

The past few days were an all together different matter. In light of her unwavering commitment, I found myself not only willing, but in many ways eager, to change her. We had reached a new found level of understanding and trust between us that was impossible to deny. For once nothing felt like a rash decision decision to counteract a ridiculous situation forcing our hand. A choice had been made, and finally we were able to see clearly enough to respect it.

An image of Bella racing through the woods and leaping out of trees lingered in my mind. With joined hands we carelessly ran, jumped, and played without fear. The sheer freedom of the vision was palpable; I was holding her hand without worrying about of crushing it, she ran without stumbling, and we hunted and made love in the aftermath.

It was a life with a mate, and I could barely breathe from the anticipation.

If perhaps in my fantasy, our hands were adorned with matching rings, it was merely a minute detail I would learn to live without for Bella.

I hope.

I shook the nonsensical moroseness from my mind, in an attempt to reestablish my earlier ebullience. I was being needlessly greedy in my desires, when I would have her by my side for eternity, a wedding ring was merely a technicality. I had no doubts that she was eternally mine, and I needed no further proof of her decision.

Except that I longed to have her wear my ring.

I was unable to fool myself into thinking otherwise. She already had my heart, and I was restless with the need to have a sign of my infinite devotion on her.

Since in the long run, an egg plate wouldn't really cut it. But alas, said eggs were congealing in a remarkably unappealing manner that I suppose meant they were done. Or so Bobby Flay had led me to believe.

Plating this disgusting human necessity that I was overly pleased to have made, I returned to our room to invade sibling bonding time. Without a word being uttered, nor a frenzy of shuffling, they had hidden their notebooks, and continued on with their strange thoughts.

I pointedly ignored them and focused on Bella's head, that closely resembled what Jessica Stanley routinely called 'make-out hair,' and my overlarge white Oxford wrinkling across her torso. Tiny pale toes peeked out from underneath the shirt, that she was attempting to use to cover herself.

She looked thoroughly ravished and far more delectable than the food I had to offer. I rapidly formulated plans to have _her_ for breakfast... in a completely non-drinking her blood or snacking on her manner....

Jasper's smirk implied my less than gentlemanly inclinations had been discovered. The smug bastard was well aware I was not in the mood to entertain guests, and he made no effort to move things along.

"Edward quit doing the pee-pee dance, we'll be out of here in a minute and you two can get back to doing the dirty."

Emmett's thoughts echoed his sentiments, that I resembled a petulant five year old who'd been told he couldn't have a cookie. A particularly warm decadently delicious cookie...

At this point I realized how far gone I was that I was comparing Bella to not only food, but food that would make me nauseous if I ingested it.

Idly I thought it was at least better than dwelling on the succulent sweetness of her blood...

I straightened my stature and removed the dejected glare from my face, in an attempt to prove that I was not in fact childish.

"Aren't you late for a play date? The wolves asked me to schedule you for two o'clock. I might recommend you invest in some friendly deodorant first...just a thought."

Being a wise ass didn't make me childish...

"I'd rather you bathe in bear piss than come home smelling like that. I don't care if you want to wrestle them, the answer is no."

Rose knew as well as I did he would go in a heartbeat. Her thoughts and facial expression implied that if he were to go, I would be having a more active sex life than him for a long while into the conceivable future.

"Just hush, all of you. Bella when you're dressed, we'll be waiting. Edward...get lost. We have things to do."

Bella's seemingly good mood deteriorated on the spot.

"Get lost implies I don't want him around. Which is a whopper of a lie. I want him around, and his eggs, so please come join me before I have to go...uh...do...stuff?"

Then I was the smug bastard as I settled behind Bella's back and pulled her closer. I rid myself of the foul poultry and began kissing her neck. Normally I would never participate in such a public display of affection, but to hell with it. I'd witnessed decades of their overt gestures, and while we technically weren't married, we may as well be.

The minds of my siblings permeated the back of my mind, registering, strangely enough, their approval of my behavior.

I, however, was far more invested in the task at hand, of pressing my lips to every inch of her exposed skin while she ate. It had, after all, been nearly eight hours, 23 minutes, and 31 seconds since I had last kissed her. That was one third of a dragonfly's lifespan wasted in between kisses. Utterly unacceptable.

"We might want to depart so they can do their 'stuff,' and I can be bathed in another storm of unresolved sexual tension. By the by, Bella, you'd be doing your new brother a helluva of a favor by lifting your hysterically amusing sex embargo..."

_"Don't even try projecting your huffiness at me, you have to see the irony of it all."_

Amusement seeped through my annoyance enough for Jasper to recognize my acquiescence to his point, and with that they left us in peace.

"Well good morning to you too sunshine. What has you so grumpy?"

"I'm not convinced grumpy is the appropriate term. Gleefully possessive might suffice."

She cocked her head to look at me as she spoke.

"And what could possibly have prompted that? We're finally in a good place, our drama is behind us, we've got permission for me to be changed, and we made out all night. I think all systems are a go for eternal happiness..."

Unable to resist, I kissed her upturned mouth good morning. For once she didn't protest about 'gag breath' that I could not have cared less about, and just let me enjoy it.

There was such freedom in giving into this instead of fighting the inevitable. I didn't care if it were fate or my own weakness, I was done resisting her and out future.

Unfortunately, it was in bad taste to let her starve, just so I could revel in never removing my lips from hers. Slowly I leaned back and waited for the infinitesimal whimper she always emitted.

"You said you want all sides of me, and the one thing they are resolutely in agreement upon is they all want _more. _You've unchained a very greedy monster, and I do hope you're willing to live with the consequences."

Her lips turned up in wry smile than always begot trouble for me.

"Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Cullen?"

I lowered my voice into what I could only hope to be a sultry tone and whispered in her ear.

"Do you really think I would have to _try_?"

"Yes."

And with that she hopped out of bed grinning like a fool. Fainting, blushing Bella just rejected me again. The same Bella whose one wish before being changed was to make love, was now being a shameless tease.

I couldn't decide if it was sexy or infuriating.

Or if for she was merely doing this to keep me in my comfort zone, much in the same way I had forbidden marriage for hers. All my senses alerted me to her desire for me, and yet she pushed me away.

She was making decisions for me and our relationship without a thought to consulting me about it.

And steadfastly meeting me move for move in my own game.

"I'm sorry."

Quizzically she looked over her shoulder and arched her eyebrow, silently asking me to elaborate.

"It seems I still haven't learned my lesson. Once again I made a unilateral decision on what was best for you without your input."

Instead of looking perturbed at my actions, she giggled.

"Noticed that did you?"

Contritely I nodded.

"Is that what this no sex embargo is about? You showing me how ridiculous my actions have been?"

"Perhaps. Or maybe I just like being a tease..."

I growled and sprung from the bed to tackle her onto the couch.

"I wrote that book and have it copyrighted. You told me so yourself. Now, do you really want to play that game?"

The devilment in her eyes answered for her, combined with the path her lips were taking down my barely buttoned shirt.

I was preparing to give myself wholeheartedly to the task, when I realized that this has been spawned by a far more serious subject matter.

"Should I have asked you if your thoughts on marriage have shifted?"

"Probably, but I shouldn't have assumed you would know that since I never said a word otherwise. I really was just playing with you since I'm as equally to blame."

I felt something begin to perch in my soul, and fought to stave it off. I could hardly afford to let it grow again.

"Does that, er, imply that they have changed?"

I sat back away from her and ran my hands through my hair as I awaited her answer.

"You could say that I have come to an understanding about my priorities in life, and the retarded importance I placed on the most inconsequential of things."

I sighed and maybe even glared at her in frustration.

"Are you being deliberately abstract or are you trying to prove how obtuse I am?"

She reached up and cupped my face. I could have sooner leaned away than parted the seas.

"Could we let it go with me saying I'm an idiot?"

"Not unless you concede I was an ass for pushing you into it."

Her hand dropped from my cheek and fell to my shirt, which she proceeded to clutch in a fist.

"You weren't an ass for asking for something you wanted, for the first time in our history together, so I suppose I'll have to explain."

She sat up and leaned on my shoulder, so naturally I pulled her into my lap.

"Strangely enough I was caught up in appearances, in two very different ways. On one hand, I couldn't fathom announcing to our graduating class that we were getting married. I didn't want them thinking it was shot-gun wedding. In conjunction with that, I didn't want my parents to think that, nor deal with their disappointment. The flip side is being your wife is a very pale imitation of what I want to be to you. Marriages end, quite routinely, and offer little guarantee of a blissful future, and I suppose I let that overwhelm me into being a total brat about it."

I wanted to disagree with her assessment, that she shouldn't call herself such things, but I was unable to deny, at least to myself, how disappointed I had been by her reaction. I'd been aching to make her my wife nearly since I fell in love with her, and she had been appalled by the suggestion.

I could move past it, now that Jake was firmly out of the picture and I could trust that she was as much mine as I was hers. But at the time, her begrudging acceptance was hardly the fantasy I'd played through my mind in the long months of my isolation.

Regardless, seeing my mother's ring sparkling on her finger had filled me with a bone deep contentment, and she had removed it as if had scalded her.

Yes, in light of her reasoning, I think I might concur that she'd been a brat about it.

"You're not saying anything, which means you secretly agree and don't want me to know."

Damn.

"I suppose it's not entirely an inaccurate description. I am perhaps...confused, as to why other's opinions matter so highly when in fact you were more than willing to be changed and run away with me. Granted things were quite different in my time, but that would have been by and large more controversial than a wedding."

For some God knows reason she looked thrilled.

"I can't believe you admitted to thinking I'm a brat!"

Wait, this was a trap? How in the world did Emmett handle these things? Rose did it to him all the time. Oh right, through an exuberance of sexual favors.

"I..."

"It's a good thing Edward, a very good thing. We both tend to have a hard time admitting that the other can be wrong. You called me out to an extent about the Jake issues, though by and large, not nearly enough. But you can't hold this stuff back, because we already know I'm pretty damn clueless. You have to spell it out for me."

Despite being in the minds of females for over eighty years, their thought process still perplexed me at every turn.

"So after I proposed, and you demanded to take off my mother's ring, I should have called you an insufferable shrew?"

She cringed, but kept smiling.

"Yes. Though I probably would have bawled all over you, but it might have kept things from escalating the way they did."

"Alright then, is there something you'd like to say to me then?"

My imagination promptly came up with thousands of likely responses...

...you're acting like a sexual deviant....why would I want a 105 year old virgin...

"I've got one."

...I used to think you were an creepy old man stalker....I secretly hate your blood breath...

"I don't care if I do something to rival Rose's bitchiness, don't you ever, ever go catatonic on me again. I don't care if I deserve it and a thousand times worse, please respond to me. Tell me you hate me and to get the hell away from you, just talk to me. I've never been so terrified in all my life as when I thought you'd crumbled into yourself."

Or that...

I didn't even want to think of that day. It may have lead us to this point, and I wouldn't change that for all the world, but I never wanted to relive it. I wanted to lock it in the dark recesses of my mind and throw away the key.

Yet I owed her an explanation, and I could hardly tell her I'd felt as if my entire being had been eviscerated by her actions. Or that the gaping chasm I had when I had separated us, had been filled with sunshine and roses compared to how I felt seeing her kiss him.

How do you tell the love of your existence that because of her betrayal, I had been willing myself to just fade away?

I had felt her blood on my mouth, and her tears on my chest and still, I was unable to respond to her pleas. I couldn't tell her that her blood meant nothing to me in comparison to her heart. I didn't want her guilt or pity, I had wanted _her,_ and she had just proven she wanted someone else. There were only two options available to me, kill him or sink so far into myself I would never return.

I could never begrudge her happiness, no matter who it was with, and so I chose the latter option.

And she wanted me to be honest about it...

"Take your pick, it was that or killing him. Slowly. In a manner that would make the Spanish Inquisition blush."

Her face blanched, but her eyes never left mine.

"I'd prefer neither, but in that moment, when I thought I'd quite literally turned you to stone, I would have taken whatever brought you back."

Incredulously I stared at her.

"You would rather he die for kissing you?"

"No, because he deserves to be rid of me once and for all, and I would have lived the rest of my life in guilt over a needless tragedy that I was my fault. But you have to grasp that I will choose you over everything. No matter the circumstances."

"I shouldn't take comfort in your ambiguous moral compass, but I do, because it matches my own."

She curled back up on my lap, completely unconcerned about my murderous tendencies.

"So you see, no excuse for vampire comas. You promised to never leave; that includes losing you inside yourself. Though if I ever do anything that criminally stupid...just eat me...and put us all out of our misery."

I covered my teeth with my lips, and nipped at her ear.

"I'd rather have a nibble now..."

A throaty laugh rumbled out of her, encouraging my lips to wander further.

"I'm starting to think you've a one track mind Mr. Cullen."

"Mmm, yes I do, and it's all focused on you Mrs. Cullen."

We both froze, as the weight of my thoughtless words fell upon us. I had been so enraptured by the taste of her skin, the pulsing of her blood, and the all around essence of _Bella_, I had spoken unconsciously. I had to backtrack. I had told her all I wanted was her, and the very next day I pushing my will on her again.

I sat her beside me, stood, and began pacing the length of the room and pinching the bridge of my nose.

"It just slipped out unintentionally. Please, I swear I'm not trying to...force the issue if you will. I respect your opinions on the matter and I don't expect you to want...that. I'm...just..sorry.."

"Edward, look at me."

My pace quickened to the point I had to be a blur to Bella, but the panic was swelling inside of me, pushing aside all rationality. My brain fogged and my limbs fell like dead weight beside me. I was overwhelmed with dread at her reaction.

I tried reassuring myself.

Things had changed. She chose me. She was mine. This wouldn't send her running. It was a slip of the tongue.

It was my deepest selfish desire.

"Damnit, Edward you promised. _Look_ at me."

My eyes flashed upon her face, that showed neither disgust nor a desire to flee.

"God, did I do this to you? Do you still doubt us? Doubt me?"

My eyes fell shamefully to the floor. At every turn I failed her. Here I had tried so hard to ease her past her insecurities, and at the first sign of upheaval, I fell into my own.

"No, I don't doubt you, but I don't know how to do this Bella. I want to be the man who can change you, make love to you and live happily ever after with you. You just have to...help me...be what you need."

I hated this weakness pouring out of me. I was stripping myself bare with nothing but brutal honesty before us.

"Everything is different now, and you have to tell me what you want, how you want me, and who you need me to be. I know you want me, I believe that with every fiber of my being, I just need to know in what capacity..."

I was pulling at my hair, beyond exasperated with myself for doing this to her. For taking everything and still demanding more.

Maniacal laughter bubbled out of me with no amusement whatsoever. I could only hope she'd see some beauty in the breakdown.

"My self-absorption apparently knows no bounds? You're giving up _everything_ for me, and here I stand asking you to define our relationship."

A light jab to my midsection was all that alerted me to her presence. I had been so wrapped up in my mood swing I hadn't even noticed she'd risen.

I glanced down to see what she had shoved at me, and was met with her furious tears and a wooden box.

"Take it. This is what I want from you."

"Bella, I'm sorry, it was unacceptable for me to let this..."

"Don't finish that sentence. I'm furious at myself for letting it get to this point, I could have erased all of this with one simple request. So, please, take this."

She placed it in my hands, and stepped back for me to examine it.

It was a petite box, built of mahogany wood the exact shade of the lone color of her lightest, and my darkest strands of hair. It took a very keen eye to notice that commonality, and could only have been done by Emmett. His influence was clear throughout the piece, with its perfect edge work, and magnificent hand-carved scroll work. The wood grain had been polished to a gleam, with only 'E&B' and '2007' burnt into it. It was at once simplistic and stunning. He managed to make it equally masculine and feminine, and a perfect merging of Bella's and my own styles.

Eventually I opened the lid, and all my questions as to why Bella had asked Emmett for a box had been answered. Two coins had been welded together into a cross through their centers, and were strung floating above the bottom of the box, by nearly invisible wires.

They were my father's coins, from 1918 and 1988.

The two dates that made it possible for us to be together, were so perfectly joined, that even my vision couldn't discern where one began and the other ended.

Both halves of my coin touched both halves of hers.

It was all our dualities, the good and bad, mortal and immortal, the joy and the pain.

It was _us_.

Wrapped in a box carved by Emmett, made from my father's beloved family coins, soldered by Rose, strung by Jasper, and illuminated by the golden silk covering the inside, directly taken from the sash Esme wore while marrying Carlisle.

"Alice was helping me orchestrate a far more romantic setting to give this to you, but now...seems like a better time."

The entire family contributed to this gift of Bella's, showering the moment with their love and support, giving their talents and possessions to make it possible.

All parts of our whole.

All done for _me._

I finally looked up at Bella, with the tears I couldn't shed pouring down her face, and I sought to speak past the proverbial lump in my throat.

"I don't know that I've ever been quite as touched in my very long life."

Her hair covered her face, in her constant attempt to hide, but she never let her eyes leave mine.

"I never really thought I had anything to offer, and then there you went again, asking only for me. And thank God for that, because I need only you. So I wanted you to have that, because that's how we work. Our differences are merely off shoots of our core, where our halves meet; where we're the same. It doesn't matter whether it's you or me, because it's all us, and our blinding love for one another."

How could anything so pure be the same as me?

"You are everything that is good inside of me. Quite simply you are everything that I am."

She took a step closer, took my free hand in hers, and pulled downwards as she kneeled on the floor. I set our box beside us, and joined her, still reeling from her gift.

What did I need with technicalities when she was sitting in front of me, pledging her life and her soul to me?

I had everything, and with this simple keepsake signifying everything that we were, I could finally say I was happy with it.

"I hope you know I had big plans. Our siblings, whom I assume you see their influence in the box, were going to cart the bed to the clearing where damn near everything bad that has happened to us went down. I was going to let them get me all pretty for you, and I was going to be waiting at dusk, surrounded by candles in a very classically romantic setting. Then you were going to show up, and I was going to give you this whole speech about how my perspective had changed, and how I wanted every side of me to be joined with every side of you. And it was going to erase all the horror of the past, and create new beautiful memories in which we were incandescently happy."

Her adorable bottom lip jutted out in a pout as she relayed her plans.

"It was going to be symbolic, dammit."

"Please believe me, that while I have no idea why you were going to go to so much trouble, it was unnecessary, but the thought alone is incredibly moving."

It was entirely unlike Bella too. A week ago, such a thing would have never occurred to her, and if I had suggested it, she would have soundly protested. It was another tangible sign of the unfathomable amount of growth she'd undergone. Not for the first time recently, I contemplated how while I felt like I was perishing in that tent, she was being reborn. She was stronger, more mature, more open, more...ready to be loved the way I needed to love her.

"I was going to explain to you that my anti-sex tactics were merely a ruse to one-up you for canceling our marriage. I wanted to tell you that the only outside opinions that mattered to me anymore were either blood relations or helped create that gift. I was going to show you that I finally knew what I wanted, and it was to finally replace your last missing piece in the place in where everything fell apart. I was going to give you the only tangible sign of my commitment that I could think of."

Her heart was stammering at an alarming rate, her chest was heaving, and her palms were sweating.

Whatever she was trying to convey had her tremendously on edge.

"It's fine, you can set it all up and I'll pretend to be surprised. I am, after all, the one who forced your hand by having a melt down over a Freudian slip."

She sighed and laced our fingers together.

"That would be the issue at hand. I don't want it to be."

Befuddlement was the only thing that could tamper the thing stretching its wings inside me.

"Before I assume something drastic, I must beg you to elaborate."

Her heart slowed and her breathing calmed, as radiant joy shone through her wet eyes.

"Every time I close my eyes, I see our hands clasped, with matching rings flashing in the sunlight.

I see my name as Bella Cullen.

I see myself as your wife.

And I was wondering if you would mind being my husband?"

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

**_References:_**

_Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian Military theorist, historian, and strategist. Wrote the book On War. reading it makes me giddy._

_The Stuarts, British Monarchies._

_Bobby Flay, a chef on the Food Network_

_"The Graduate"_

_Hope is a Thing with Feathers poem by Emily Dickinson._

_Pride and Prejudice_

**_Chapter Notes:_**

_**SURPRISE!!** It's EPOV. I know it seems random as hell, but it's not. We will be finishing out Atlas in his perspective, because Bella's transformation is more or less complete. She's grown up, she's righted her wrongs, and she's gone after what she wants. As you can see from this chapter, Edward's now getting his act together, and maybe getting his happily ever after. Or not. He could reject her bratty ass. You never know..._

_PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review and tell me what you think about this chapter. I really delved into new waters by taking on a new perspective and I want to know if you love, hate, or are indifferent to it. I want to know if you hate me for this cliffie. I want to know how you feel about Edward's thought processes and actually experiencing his mood swings that we already know make Bella's head spin. Basically I just want to hear from you all!_

_My fic rec for all of you is on my profile under favorites, and is OCD_Indeed's "The Fallout." It's AU and AMAZING._

_Also the chapter playlists are up and listed on my profile, as is a link to the Atlas Shrugged thread on Twilighted. Have a listen and come say hi!_


	11. Lives

_"Every time I close my eyes, I see our hands clasped, with matching rings flashing in the sunlight._

_I see my name as Bella Cullen._

_I see myself as your wife._

_And I was wondering if you would mind being my husband?"_

The timid tenant inside my chest took root.

It grew forth and blossomed in my soul.

Hope lived.

She wanted me.

_Me._

To have and to hold, to cherish and protect, for the forever we both shall live.

And she wanted to know if I _minded?_

All I minded was my complete inability to decipher what to say or do next. I was locked in myself as the shock, relief, and incandescent euphoria fought for dominance within me. I wanted to cry joyous tears. I wanted to crush her to me. I wanted to marry her.

Which meant her question needed to be answered.

I gently brushed the hair away from her wet cheeks and wiped away her tears. Her heart sped up and her breathing increased as I lowered my head to touch hers, mere inches from her sweet mouth. My hands found their way around her hips and I pulled her towards me, bringing our bodies into as much contact as our kneeling position would allow.

I knew she was anticipating my answer probably as foolishly nervous as I had been a few short weeks ago. Only this time it wasn't a bargain to be haggled over, but a promise to be made. I savored the moment, as I breathed her in; the smell of her tears and anxiety, the luscious scent of her blood and body, the feel of her warm breath fluttering against my mouth. A thousand years from now I would still remember this moment; every word, smell, and feeling. I would recall the texture of the Oxford cotton shirt wrinkled against the hips I was clasping; the silken strands of her thoroughly mussed hair that tickled my face; the curvature and softness of her body pressed against mine. Never would I forget the day she asked to be mine.

"The only thing I would mind is to ever be parted from your side. To be your husband would be the fulfillment of my every desire."

Her tears began anew as my lips met hers in a promise. It wasn't a fevered and frenzied clash of lips and tongues that grew into a crescendo; no our mouths barely moved, but I could physically feel our lives intertwining.

She eventually leaned away and raised her chin to look directly at me in a mix of shy happiness.

"So, yes?"

A smile the size of the room we were in stretched across my face as a quiet laugh escaped me. I leaned backwards towards the floor, pulling her with me as I went, until she was sprawled atop of me. Her torso was pressed firmly into mine, and only her face wasn't touching me. I unwound my arms from around her, and pillowed them behind my head.

I was completely at her mercy.

Her eyes caught mine, and to what would have been my eternal shame, something akin to a purr of utter contentment and surrender escaped me.

"Mrs. Cullen? I'm all fucking yours."

With that she attacked. I don't know if it was my acquiescence, my foul language, or gifting her my surname, but something in that combination set off a maelstrom. Her hands were in my hair, her mouth was ravishing mine, and her body was vibrating with her passion. My hands followed suit, wandering at their own discretion, and basking in the joy of my shy reserved Bella taking charge.

In barely a blink of an eye in my lifetime, we had shattered each other's confidence, and brought us both to our knees. I had driven her into another man's arms who could offer her what I had steadfastly refused to give her. She pushed me to the brink of despair with her actions. The power of our insecurities and arbitrary decisions nearly destroyed us.

Yet here we lay with her on top of me, taking any and all liberties she so chose with my body. The power had shifted. It was no longer in our deconstruction and breakdown, but in our creation. Our strength was in the relinquishment of our fears and anxieties, and the manner in which we were endlessly falling into each other.

Yes, if it begot this reaction, I'd call her Mrs. Fucking Cullen every damn day.

Minutes or millenniums later, even my vampire brain was too fogged to count the seconds, she pulled back. I couldn't say that our ardor had cooled, for all evidence pointed to the contrary, but she no longer clung to every last second of our embrace. Though I did. She was finally secure that I would give her whatever her heart, or body, desired. Her satisfied kitten smile was proof enough. She was no longer felt every kiss might be our last.

I, on the other hand, had bitten the apple and there was just no chance in heaven or hell of ever repressing myself again.

"You look mighty pleased with yourself."

"Oh, I am. I've just put an end to your exceedingly long and dull bachelorhood. It's about time I make an honest man out of you, don't you think?"

She was straddling my waist and gloating. She had found her validation, at long last, in giving this monumental gift to me. She had always needed to give back, and by her giving in, she'd found her way of doing so.

It didn't mean I couldn't rib her about it though.

"I don't know, there might be something to living in sin. After all, you have never had a rebellious period, and what kind of dark and mysterious fiancé would I be if I didn't lead you into temptation?"

Her laughter bubbled out of her, as her tiny fingers teased my sides. Only Bella would tickle a vampire.

"I'm onto you Edward Cullen.."

"You mean on me," I interrupted.

"Oh very mature. You're just as much of a horn-ball as I am, aren't you?"

A thousand times yes.

I vaguely thought I should be ashamed of this, but the smiling squirming woman on me erased the notion before it began. Besides, the alternative was too much to risk.

I braided our fingers together and tried to answer her honestly. It was not altogether an experience I relished.

"Perhaps. I am eternally seventeen after all, it does come with certain side effects when one is around a hot girl."

Or I could hedge.

She rolled her eyes.

Damn.

"Fine, that is true, but you could also say I refuse to lose you again because fear keeps me from fulfilling your needs."

Her smile turned bittersweet at my words, only proving that full disclosure was never in any one's best interest.

"You don't really think you're going to lose me do you?"

This at least I could answer truthfully, and I would thank God, Carlisle, and Bella herself, every day for the rest of my life for my answer.

"No, I do not. The only thing I have ever been more secure in than your love for me, is my own for you."

Her expression turned joyous and then rapidly back to stern. Two hundred mile per hour mood swings were apparently contagious.

"Are you pushing your limits with me out of duty Edward? I want you, God knows I do, but if you're doing this merely to satisfy me, than I don't want it, especially if it's hurting you. I can't do that anymore. You have to talk to me about these things."

There certainly was one part of me hurting...

Still too rooted in my ways, I couldn't bring myself to say as much. It was one thing to let my language barrier fall, and partially a relief as well. We had been a running joke to Fate in so many ways, that the situations begged for an expletive or two. It was only the pedestal I was slowly realizing I had unfairly put her upon, that had kept me from saying it in front of her in the past. Except for Tyler's damn van. Hell if I could have prevented the 'fuck' to pass my lips.

Shifting my brain, and her, back to the present, I scooted her low enough to the pressing answer to her question. Not even I could put on such an act.

I raised my eyebrow and gave her a pointed glance, trying to convey my response without being forced to say I had endless nights to fathom our coupling...and that I had a very active imagination. Not that our recent activities had left me much time to fantasize....

She didn't blush. She didn't stammer. She looked _giddy_.

I couldn't prevent my smirk.

"I take it I don't need to elaborate?"

"I think I've got a _feel_ for your situation."

The girl was goading me, and if it were possible, it was making me adore her even more.

This Bella was confident, in us. Even if she scoffed when I called her hot, or still wallowed in an inordinate amount of guilt, she didn't let it rattle her. In some ways this was the Bella that would have flourished if one thing after another hadn't tried to tear us down. Between James, Laurent, and Victoria, the Volturi, Jake, and most certainly ourselves, we'd both strayed from our original path. The girl atop of me was the one who gave me lip for sending mixed signals, and who threw herself at me during our first kiss. She'd found herself, and her femininity through this, and it was a magnificent sight to behold.

Even if I was suffering a thousand little deaths every time she rocked back and forth.

I placed my hands on her hips and stilled her movements, but was unable to quiet her moans.

"You might not want to start something your little embargo can't finish."

I was fairly confident that she would ignore me and continue, lacking the will power to enforce her absurd rule now that we were to be wed.

"About that..."

Success was within my grasp. I by no means desired, well yes I actually quite desired it, but if she was willing, I did want to wait until we were married.

Which if I had any say in it, would be as quickly as possible after we left this room.

"I would like to rescind my request for us to make love before my change."

My brain realigned my focus, and momentarily blanked at her ridiculous statement.

"I'm sorry, who are you and what have you done with my fiancée?"

Her brow furrowed in confusion. I wanted to kiss it, but that would only lead my traitorous hips into moving in sync with hers again.

"I don't understand."

I sat up to put us in it a less sexually charged position. Unfortunately.

"Bella, you're giving up everything you fought so hard to attain. Your views on marriage have fallen by the wayside, and now your one request, to be together before you're changed, you're giving up. Now that I've given you free rein of my body, and you're well aware of my desire for you, you make this decision? Selflessness lead us down as many wrong paths as selfishness. Don't be a martyr for me. I won't tolerate it."

She sighed before she spoke.

"Edward, my views on marriage changed because they were ridiculous notions of an immature child. I'm not bending to your will, if I was, would I have enlisted the family's aid? Would I have asked you to be my husband? No. I would merely tell you I had changed my mind. I did all of this because I can't bear to not be connected to you in every possible way. Maybe all that literature you hate made me old fashioned, but I need to do this as much for me as for you. I need to do it out of love, not fear; that's what those coins represented."

"You swear on the Volvo it's for you alone?"

"No, because you're the one with a sick obsession with that car, not me. And secondly, it is for you too, so I'd be lying, but what's for me is for you, and vice versa."

I decided to ignore her crack on my beloved car, and dig deeper. I had by no means been heading into the tail spin I'd had earlier. I was confident in her decision, but it's hard to put it past Bella to try and sacrifice herself. Her self-mutilation in the tent only reinforced the fact.

And they call me the family emo...

"Pray tell, how does this lead to us having an exceedingly dull honeymoon?"

Damn. She had her serious face on. The one that insinuated she was about to define the term obstinate.

"You can mope all you want now, but you can't tell me you wouldn't be terrified when the time came to try."

"Yes, I would tremble before your titillating sexiness."

"Big talk Mr. Perv, but look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't be scared of hurting me. Tell me that if I had a solitary bruise you wouldn't turn into Arthur Dimmesdale and start whipping yourself over it."

I took great umbrage at ever being compared to a Hawthorn novel, but as my thoughts lingered on her potentially bruised wrists, I had difficulty finding fault in her logic. Images of her crushed vertebrae, snapped tibia, shattered ribs, internal bleeding, burst appendixes...not to mention a complete destruction of her womb if I lost myself in loving her, flashed through my mind. It was all too easy to envision a scenario in which my ardor overcame my control, and one minute slip could break her.

"Your point may have a modicum of validity. Though I'm hardly Puritanical."

I was desperately trying to keep it light, and not succumb into the depths the images plaguing me were sending me into.

"I don't want us to lose our virginity like that. I don't want there to be any fear between us, and I don't think you could realistically promise otherwise."

Hosanna, now she grasps her fragility...

"I can assure you that I could keep the blood-lust in check. As I've said to you in the past, every part of me is averse to causing you harm, but the hint of too much pressure in the heat of the moment could cause you untold amount of damage. Yes, I could change you, but I cannot honestly say that I've waited a century for this, only to have it end in you thrashing and screaming in something other than ecstasy."

Her arms wrapped around my neck, and she looked pleased.

"And I don't want to be fretting that you're so busy worrying about hurting me that you can't enjoy it, because then I won't. Therefore we'll wait until I'm crazed newborn...there might be a flaw in my logic....Will I even be able to think about it at that stage?"

"I'll take you away from all distractions to do it, and I promise you'll be quite capable of thinking of it. We might miss out on the slow and sweet experience, but as a newborn, I can guarantee we'll be newlyweds in every sense of the word. All your emotions and senses will be heightened, your passions in particular."

"Edward we've been dancing around this for almost two years, and we'll have forever to try every imaginable way. I'm not going to cry if it's not candlelight and rose petals the first time."

It would be primal and savage, and everything I'd been avoided listening to for the past eighty years. I could hardly contain my anticipation.

"If you're sure, then we'll wait, but in light of that, do not expect a long engagement, nor a large time in between marriage and changing."

She sank into my shoulder, resting her head under my chin as she made herself comfortable.

"Mmm, what did you have in mind?"

I glanced at the clock, and saw that we had a few hours until City Hall closed.

"I think two hours should suffice. Alice has a wedding dress hidden in her closet, and due to time constraints, my prom tux will suffice. We can be married by the Justice of the Peace, back here by nightfall, and then we can work it out from there."

She raised her head, and disappointment crossed her face, as her lip jutted out.

"Well that doesn't sound like a shot-gun wedding at all. Is that what you want?"

"I want what you want, and you do deplore attention, so I thought this might be an apt compromise."

"I've sorta been planning something else with Alice, a bit more formal event. It's not the big white wedding, but it touches the high notes. I was going to surprise you with it, but I wanted you to have your say in it."

"You really want to have a wedding ceremony?"

"I do."

"I assume tonight is out of the picture then?"

She nodded her head vigorously, sending her hair flying in her face and mine.

"Then I suppose I should fetch you the _damn_ ring."

"No!"

Flashbacks of a few weeks ago when she was so put-upon by the whole affair skipped through my mind as she flailed around in horror...again.

I released a pent up sigh and released her from my grip. I tried to prevent frustration from slipping into my tone, but I was so damn weary of this game.

"Must we repeat this scene again, Bella? A ring is typically a part of marriage."

Her pupils dilated, and her sputtering began.

"I didn't mean it like that...I just wanted to take back the 'damn ring' part. I'd be honored to wear your mother's ring, Edward. That's all I meant."

I was more than slightly convinced this policy of honesty among partners was inherently flawed. One truthful statement and you're an ass...again.

"You know I'm going to pray that when you're a vampire I can read your mind. I'm rather tired of the taste of my own foot."

"You and me both. Now are you going to give me the ring, so I can try and be girly this time? I might even manage to work up a squeal."

I smiled and kissed her head, before setting her on the couch to go get the ring.

"Don't over exert yourself, you'd inevitably strain your larynx if you tried."

I had returned the ring to the first box Emmett had carved. It had housed a collection of my keepsakes over the years; my human family's heirlooms, gifts I had received over the years, and mementos from my time with Bella were all scattered throughout it. In the right hand corner, next to the bottle cap from that first day at lunch, and our prom ticket, resided my mother Elizabeth's ring. For days after she had agreed to marry me, I had carried it around in my pocket. As eager as a Boy Scout, I wanted to have it readily available for the moment she decided she wanted to call it her own.

Only the day never came.

When I had returned from the clearing, I limped into the room, and pulled it from my pocket with my only functioning arm. I couldn't bear to look at it and see the manifestation of all my shattered hopes. I kept it tightly bound in my fist, and dropped it in the box. It was only out of residual love for my mother that I kept from crushing it. Instead I locked it away with all the other tattered remnants of my past, and I had never planned to reopen it again. Shutting that box, triggered the anguish I had been holding back, and with the last of my strength, I tore apart the room. Everywhere I could see there was a reminder of her, and I had wanted to destroy it all before the memories could settle upon me. It was of course, of no use. Torn books and broken furniture wouldn't erase her presence, and I had been fooling myself in thinking I had wanted her gone. As the venom poured out of me at alarming rates, I had weakened to the point I could barely stand. I had then sunk into the bed she had never wanted, and waited for the oblivion.

I've seen over a hundred years in this world, and never before this moment, have I grasped the extent of how drastically the times can change.

Nor have I ever been happier to see them do so.

I plucked the ring from its haphazard arrangement, and left the lid of the box open. I sped back to Bella, who was awaiting me on the couch, and looked a far cry from how one would want to when they were getting engaged. Yet the peaceful grin and the light in her eyes told me she hardly minded.

"Should I get on my knees, and make an eloquent declaration about loving you every day of forever again?"

"You just want to have the last word on the proposal, don't you? Well too bad. Tell me about the ring instead."

I settled on the couch and sat her on my lap. Slowly I unfolded my fist holding the ring, and grasped her left hand with my right.

"As you know, it was my mother Elizabeth's wedding ring, and the style, ironically enough, is Edwardian. She wore it every day of my life, until the day she died in that hospital. I had been delirious with the fever, but my mother remained long enough to get Carlisle's word that he would to save me. He stood by her side as she succumbed to the influenza, and with her last remnant of strength, she removed it, and put it in his palm. I don't remember it, but every year on the anniversary of her death, Carlisle recalls the memory."

I pushed the ring onto the tip of her left ring finger.

"She never had the opportunity to pass this onto me herself, but the intent was clear. She gave it to the man who would save me, and with it, the right to pass it on to me. It has had to wait a long time to grace someone's hand, but it was only meant to be worn by two women; the first and last I'll ever love."

Deftly I slid it all the way down her finger. Her hand promptly curled, holding it in place, and preventing it from being removed. She was protective of it this time, and judging by her rapt attention, nothing would separate her from it.

Her ring-clad hand found mine, and took it in her own as she turned her head into my chest. The faintest of pressure pushed against me.

She was kissing my still heart, accepting its past and present, and promising to keep it forevermore.

I closed my eyes and reveled in the comfort of holding the whole world in my arms.

"Thank you for waiting for me Edward."

________________________________________________________________________

**References:**

"Hope is a Thing with Feathers," Emily Dickinson

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Arthur Dimmesdale was a guilt ridden minister, who flagellated himself for his sexual sins. (Well, more or less without giving away the whole book)

"The Times They are a- Changing," Bob Dylan

"Banana Pancakes," Jack Johnson.

You could arguably also call this chapter "Little Things," because there are a lot of small subtle details. So how many things did you all notice? Did you get a 'feel' for Edward? Did you notice his growth? Did you like the little glimpse into the past?

What do you think of their decision to wait until she was changed? Or Edward's response to the proposal?

Just review and let me hear what you all are thinking!


	12. Loyalty

**Author's Note:**

_Still not mine._

Also a huge thanks to my sister and Michellephants who have both somehow been coerced into pre-reading this beast. Much obliged, ladies.

Sidenote, the **Eddie and Bellie Awards** are opening up nominations **June 8th** and there are a ton of fantastic AU stories, so please go show your love for them! http://www[dot]thecatt[dot]net/tw/Default[dot]aspx

* * *

A black American Express card slid across the marred Formica counter.

"We have reservations under Cullen for two tickets to Jacksonville."

"Yes, I have you listed for first class, if you could just sign here Mrs. Cullen, we'll have you on your way as soon as possible."

Bella signed the slip of paper and accepted the tickets and her credit card before turning to me. Her nose was wrinkled and her face was slightly paler than normal. All things considered, that was practically a non-reaction in light of the cost of the transaction. It also lacked the look of abject horror she flashed me with when I had initially presented the card to her.

We scarcely left the room after Bella proposed. The remainder of the afternoon had been spent making aggrandized plans and having frank conversations. It was reminiscent of our earlier days, and I had found my desire to know every thought in her head had hardly been quenched. I had pestered her for hours on a wide range of subjects, in particular her impending change. She had revealed a deep disdain for doing the dishes, cleaning the toilet, and domesticity as a whole in regards to what she would miss the least. There had also been moments I had almost feared for Charlie's life while she had been recounting all the ways she would relish never seeing, smelling or cooking another damned fish. It seemed that eighteen years were an ample enough amount of time spent on household duties, and she was more than anxious to spend a few centuries without them.

And for some reason bodily fluids; how a girl who hated blood was going to enjoy being a vampire escaped me though.

It had been an alarmingly insightful glimpse into Bella's mindset; equal parts disturbing, hilarious and all sides insane.

She had never once complained about caring for her parents. But as she had spoken of starting our new life, I noticed the less than enthused undertones she used to speak of her childhood. She didn't begrudge them, and I had doubted she even realized the picture she had painted of her childhood. It had been one thing to cook for her and Charlie, her fish hatred aside. He had generally asked very little of her, appreciated her efforts, and he'd made it a habit to take her out or bring home pizza a time or two every week to ease her burden. Moreover, Bella enjoyed caring for him, if for no other reason she hated how alone he'd been, and in the very near future, would be again. The vision of her life in Phoenix was an altogether different matter, and whether she had admitted it or not, she'd been her mother's personal assistant as a child. She had cooked, cleaned, done the bills, and effectively run Renee's life.

It was little wonder she was incapable of accepting help or presents. She had spent her formative years providing for her immature and irresponsible mother, and she still failed to see it as problematic. She had merely kept ticking off all the household chores she'd would gleefully give up, until it reminded her that her mother was still unaware of our nuptials. With that realization, her face had only become partially devoid of color, before it had set in grim determination.

For some unknown reason she was under the impression Renee needed to be told in person, and in what I had been sure was her way of showing her effort at accepting my wealth, she asked me to book the tickets.

Instead of agreeing, I had shaken my head and removed a black card from my wallet to hand to her. In silver script read Bella Cullen, and it was the second card on the personal account of Edward and Bella Cullen. It had been ordered after I had initially proposed and I'd been carrying it in my wallet, trying to devise a way to sneak it into hers. It had been a devious ploy, but with her inability to accept gifts, or in that case, something that now belonged to her, I had thought it to be my only option. Her request however, had presented a prime opportunity to see if the ring had been a fluke in gift giving.

With perhaps more enjoyment than necessary, I had suggested she order them, and reminded her that my long legs preferred first class.

To her credit, she only swallowed rapidly and her eyes bugged out slightly before she accepted the card.

My smugness at giving her full access to my monetary worth had caused Jasper to get smacked a few times, but I had been riding high with my ring on her finger and our names linked on our credit cards. It was practically the 21st century version of Esme's 'His' and 'Her' towel sets.

Nothing had been able to dim my mood until she had come back in the room. She had confirmed our departure to Florida in two days, with an unknown return date. Apparently potential time with my negligent flake of a mother-in-law could ruin even the best of moments.

That was until I remembered that with a mother-in-law comes a wife and my mood had rapidly returned to elation. Especially once I had darkly admitted to myself that I was perhaps the most fortunate of future son-in-laws, because in two weeks time I'd never have to deal with Renee again.

I just had to kill my wife in the process.

My thoughts had been cruel, considering I was permanently separating a daughter and mother for our own happiness. Yet the small reminder that there was no clear delineation of those roles between Bella and Renee made it easier to handle. If anything I felt guiltier for Bella's potential unborn children than I did her mother.

The mother we were now on a plane to go see.

Bella had scurried into the window seat, and was getting herself comfortable, with the pillow, blanket and tucking her sweatpants covered knees up and under her. Once settled, she turned to me looking fretful.

"I thought we'd already covered all human-vampire crash safety potentials, why do you look so nervous?"

A smile tugged at her mouth, partially erasing her frown.

"Can we really afford to be leaving right now? The wedding is in less than two weeks, and one Cullen pow-wow consisting primarily of Emmett reliving one of his Elvis themed ceremonies can hardly count as a sufficient planning."

I couldn't help but laugh at her naïveté. Before heading to Charlie's to tell him we were flying to Florida, we'd sprawled on our stomachs in the backyard to discuss the wedding. One-by-one our siblings had joined us, until we'd formed a large circle. Wedding pow-wow indeed.

"Did we not settle on a time, place, guests, and colors?"

She nodded her head.

"Well, yes, sort of, if you call Alice and Rose having a cat-fight about the proper shade of blue, me 'picking colors.'"

"And we sorted out the wedding party..."

"Once again ending in a nose game over who would be your best man..."

"You approved your dress..."

"It had been hand sewn and tailor made to fit me, in an contemporary Edwardian fashion that Alice helped design. What part of that requires approval?"

I sighed and straightened in my seat. Her orneriness on top of the din of voices in my head, and the echoing humming of the engines, was wearing thin.

"Are you displeased with our choices?"

"No."

"Do you doubt that six vampires with unlimited funds will be able to throw together a wedding in so short amount of time?"

"I guess not..."

Turning to look at her I honed in on the heart of the matter.

"Therefore you've really nothing to stress about over the wedding ceremony_ you_ wanted."

Her body slumped in her chair, and her head fell on my shoulder.

"So in reality, you're fretting over seeing your mother."

I felt her nod against me, and I pulled her closer.

"We could always blow her off and head to the Keys. That card in your pocket could rent us a private island if you so chose..."

"And how do you propose we get from Jacksonville to the Keys?"

"You could sharpen your Grand Theft Auto skills that you learned from Alice. Or you could buy us that Audi I've been eyeing."

Her quiet laughter was her response to my preposterousness, as I had intended.

"Um, quick question. When the hell did I get put in charge? 'Bella buy the tickets. Bella steal a car. Bella get me an Audi.' Way to be lazy, Mr. Responsible. "

I aimed for innocence, and more than likely hit impish.

"This was your bright idea after all, you can call the shots. I was content to do horribly distracting things to you while you called her. But no, you wanted to be mature and speak to her in person. Besides, I gave you all the money, so you have to handle the expenses now."

She stuck her tongue out at me, before covering herself with the blanket and closing her eyes. I may not have eased her fears, but I had at least distracted her enough for her to get some sleep. It would after all be nearing midnight our time by the time we arrived.

I adjusted my breathing to hers and followed suit, closing my eyes, and enjoying the normality of a weekend at the in-laws. As my mind relaxed, I focused on completing the bridal march I had been composing in my head. We had a long flight, and I still required a bridge...

"Bella what on earth is that on your hand? Oh! Did you get it at that craft show I emailed you about?"

We had stepped into the Dwyer house mere seconds ago, and Renee had already spotted the ring. I chose to ignore that she thought my mother's ring was purchased at a hippie artisan craft show, and sat our bags down to take Bella's hand. She would need all the support she could get when she corrected her at once astute and oblivious mother.

Taking a breath big enough to inflate a dirigible, Bella straightened her shoulders and addressed Renee.

"Actually, Re... Mom, I didn't. It's an engagement ring...from Edward."

Renee's mind didn't even pause to consider it before laughing.

"Oh honey, that's hilarious. Good one."

To her credit, Bella didn't falter, nor did she notice the grating noise of my grinding teeth.

"No really, we're getting married. That's what we came to tell you."

Her mother's smile never slipped, and her mind remained rooted squarely on what she was saying. Apparently the woman's 'child-like exuberance' she was so lauded for, meant she lacked a brain-mouth filter.

"Bella don't you think you're taking this mid-life crisis a little far? You're being ridiculous; of course you're not getting married. Now come on you two, I want to show you my new potting wheel."

The woman was clearly refusing to accept any reality other than her own, regardless despite it being at the expense of her daughter's happiness.

I leaned down to whisper in Bella's ear.

"We came, we saw, we at least informed her. Say the word and I can have us in a hotel in twenty minutes."

Her wide eyes turned to mine with her forehead creased in concern.

I could already tell she was going to force herself to endure her mother's inanities because she felt she owed her.

"Edward, please. I need her to be okay with this."

And in one little request, her priorities became my own. It didn't matter if I thought all she owed her mother was a call to Child Welfare Services or if I'd be more than pleased when her negative influence was out of Bella's life. She wanted her mother's approval, and I would get it for her.

I left our bags in the foyer, and tugged Bella behind me, following Renee into the family room.

"Mrs. Dwyer..."

"Oh Edward, I've told you, it's Renee."

Reading this woman's mind was a lesson in futility. She could focus, but much in the same way as a bird spotting something shiny.

"Yes, Renee, I must inform you that what Bella said is correct. We are to be wed within two weeks."

A flash of a sore back, swollen feet, and pile after pile of clothes unable to fit flashed through Renee's mind.

She whirled around glaring at Bella's stomach.

"He may be hot Bella, but enjoy it and move along. You don't need to buy what he's selling, just borrow it for a while. So unless he's already filled your belly...?"

She let her question hang suspended in the air, filling the room with her awkward accusations and tactlessness. She never once thought about Bella, she merely inserted herself into the scenario and filled in the story according to her own misjudgments.

Not to mention the damn shrew acted as if I simply didn't exist, as I stood two feet in front her.

Before I could step in and eat the hellion, Bella lifted her shirt over her stomach.

"Flat as ever, Mom, sorry to disappoint but we haven't ruined our lives yet."

As quickly as it had entered her mind, the images of babies left it.

I was starting to think Renee was, as Emmett would say, 'bat-shit crazy.'

She came over and patted Bella's stomach as if she were a colicky child.

"See honey? There's no need to get married. Do you two want some dessert? I picked up some Rocky Road, I know it's your favorite."

One would think, that her own mother would know she hates Ben and Jerry's due to her nut allergy and dislike for all the 'junk' they put in it. Or perhaps that she's only eaten peach ice cream since she was five years old. Her next-door neighbor used to make it from the Georgia peaches her sister shipped to Arizona. For years the elderly woman had a bowl waiting for Bella after school, since Renee was rarely home or remembered a young child needed a snack.

Before I could speak up and remind Renee of this pivotal fact, Bella interjected, bid her goodnight, and tugged on my arm until I followed her back to our bags.

"Come on, I'm tired, let's just go to bed."

I combed my hand through my hair in aggravation. After everything we'd been through, a retreat was not in my current handbook, but I'd spent too many years with Jasper to let the enemy hear mutiny in the ranks.

But if Renee kept hurting her daughter, I was going to serve her for Thanksgiving…

I followed Bella up to 'her room,' which translated to generic IKEA furniture that was far too trendy to ever represent her. Not to mention there wasn't a bookshelf in sight. Looking around I vowed Bella would be decorating our rooms from here on out.

"I suppose I'm in the guest room again? Renee is focusing on inhaling her weight in ice cream and not our sleeping arrangements at the moment."

She plopped onto another cursed single bed, and pulled on my hand to get me to sit down beside her. I'd barely touched the mattress before she crawled on top of me, kicked off her shoes, and made herself comfortable.

"Screw it. I'm doing what she told me; I'm taking what I want from you, and using you as my pillow."

I locked my arms around her and attempted to force myself into talking about this instead of letting her drift away from our problems.

"You realize the ostrichesostrich routine will not postpone the wedding. Not talking about it will neither keep us from being married nor change her mind about the matter.

"Yes, but it is easier…"

Bella's ability to completely shelve an issue she didn't want to face was going to turn my immortal hair gray sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately I didn't know if she learned it from her mother or from me….

A small growl of frustration slipped out of my not-so-carefully guarded mask.

"Bella, you're the one that wants to get married this time…"

The disbelieving face staring up at me stopped that thought in its tracks.

"Well, yes, I might be fanatic about the idea, but you started it this time. If you want your mother's approval, we have to face it head on, and I need to know if it's going to make or break our future."

I may have perhaps been too cynical to publicly advocate happily ever after fairytales, but I was so weary of us being tested at every turn. We were closer than ever, we had permission for her to be changed, we were engaged to be married….and we couldn't even get her damned mother's approval.

Bella scooted herself up my chest until her face hovered over mine.

"Nothing is going to break our future. If_ I_ didn't manage to ruin it, do you really think I'm going to let anyone else?"

I dragged my hands up her body and into her hair, as she bent down to kiss me in-between my eyes..

"No, but Bella? I really don't like your mother."

She laughed and kissed my nose.

"She just takes some getting used to, ggive it some time and we'll try again. I want her to remember her last few days with us as positive. She already thinks we orbit around one another. If she sees us now, she'll come around to supporting us. Besides, Renee is all about free love…."

I disagreed entirely with her. Renee's mind had completely disregarded the possibility of us being wed. All a few days would provide is additional stress for Bella. Yet she asked for time, and while everything inside of me screamed to shield her from this impending pain, she had to come to the realization on her own.

But nothing would stop me from catching her when it all went to hell.

* * *

The next few days were lessons in vampire anger management.

It wasn't as if Renee didn't want to think about us getting married. The thought quite literally never crossed her mind.

It was the only thing in the house that didn't though.

Perhaps three words were spoken in regards to her missing Bella's graduation, and they all lead back to Phil. Whom, I might add, we had to sit with for hours to, 'keep him company in his time of need.'

You could say a lot about Charlie Swan. He was a man of a few words and limited interests. He loved his daughter, his town, his job, fishing, and baseball. Yet never once had I heard in his quiet mind, such a singular focus on one subject. He could think about the fish he'd just caught, his anticipation for one of Bella's hot meals, and underage drinking being on the rise in Forks.

Phil Dwyer could not.

His thoughts alternated, quite slowly mind you, between baseball, Renee's 'smoking hot body,' and that with Bella home he'd finally get a decent meal.

Charlie Swan had been far too complicated a man for Renee.

Bella however, didn't seem to mind. She'd roll her eyes but continue to humor them. She cooked the meals and filled the fridge. The shelves were dusted and the house was vacucumed for the first time in quite a while. Renee insisted that she hadn't been able to bear leaving Phil's side long enough to clean.

Though she hardly objected to Bella doing it.

Throughout our last visit, Renee treated Bella as the prodigal child. She took her shopping, to the beach, out to dinner, and gossiped with her about our relationship. I had been able to see, to an extent, how Bella believed them to be such good friends.

This time I was surrounded by the thousands of reasons Bella would choose to move to Forks.

One of which were the damned woman's whims changing faster than Rose's moods.

I stayed quiet and in the background, trying to support Bella, as she ran herself ragged to please her mother. I knew Bella had a guilt complex, and considering my own, I was none to condemn her for it.

That was until she came to bed the third night reeking of bleach; emotionally and physically exhausted.

"This visit is becoming a trial of errors. You've been waiting on them out of some misguided feeling of guilt, and I've done my best to 'orbit' around you to convince her we're 'meant to be.' All that has accomplished is a clean house and Renee thinking that I stalk you...with your full knowledge... right in front of everyone. So I'm apparently an inept one to boot."

"I'm sorry I just don't know what to do anymore. She's always been like this, if she doesn't acknowledge something, it doesn't exist in her mind. I'm used to it, but what she said to you the other night is unacceptable."

All the fight went out of her, and rapidly I realized I was making matters worse. It didn't make me any less dubious of her approach, but there was no excuse for me adding to her stress.

"Shhh, you don't have to choose between us. I'm on your side, always. Lay back and let me take care of you."

I stood up and pulled her pajamas off of her, leaving her in nothing but mismatched bra and panties.

My eyes lingered...and roved...and cataloged for future reference.

My hands took in every curve and hidden soft spot on her body, while I worked to ease her tension. I massaged up her legs, over her torso, down her arms, and across her back as she sighed and sunk into the mattress.

I didn't know if it was the release I was giving her muscles or if my touch soothed her, but her whole body relaxed as I kneaded her flesh. It was a lesson in restraint, as I had to judge the appropriate amount of force to ease her pain without bruising her delicate skin. The moment was not inherently sexual, but explicitly intimate. With my hands I took her unease and surrounded her with security and comfort. Every stroke was a reminder of my love for her, and if it comforted her even an iota as much as her touch had me, than I would stay here all night.

Or another ten minutes until whisper quiet snores rumbled out of her lax body.

I covered her nearly bare body, taking great care to tuck her thoroughly in, and placed a final kiss upon her brow.

The time had come for Renee to have a come to Jesus meeting. She may be my future mother-in-law but no one had the right to put Bella through this. She'd placed the world on my girl's shoulders, and her shoulders were hunching under the weight. She wouldn't want me to bear it, but I'd be damned if I didn't at least remove it.

With my teeth if necessary.

A final glance at the bed begot a burning in my throat that had nothing to do with thirst.

Yes, Renee and I would be coming to an understanding tonight.

* * *

"Could I perhaps have a word with you?"

The smile came as easily to her face as it always did, and her mind showed no apprehension.

"Sure, have a seats. You want some peanut butter and pickles? I figure veggies dipped in protein won't hurt my diet, and you certainly don't need to worry about it. Eat up, you hardly touch your meals!"

I kindly refused and sought to stave off the cloying smell of vinegar, sugar, spices and nuts. Eying her snack of choice, I wondered how society frowned upon my diet when offered such an alternative.

"I'm sure you're aware of what I wish to speak to you about."

The barren wasteland of her mind registered the fallacy of my statement.

To be fair, I was perhaps overtly judgmental in regards to Renee. For all her inanities, she was a relatively intelligent woman and she had birthed Bella .For that I would owe her that 'til the day I perished.

"I can't say I know, but I'm happy to hear you out. Is Bella being stubborn again? I know how prickly she can get…"

"No, no nothing like that at all. It's in regards to our marriage. The ceremony is in rapidly approaching and we need to get back soon to prepare for it. We would both like you to join us for it."

Exasperated, she set down her disgusting snack with a huff.

"How did the only two kids to believe in antiquated traditions end up under my roof? You two are eighteen. Go to college, experiment, meet new people. Do stupid stuff and have lots of safe sex. But just drop this silly notion of marriage!"

For Bella's sake, I reined in my snap temper. As much as it infuriated me, her arguments were valid for this century, and especially for someone who clearly didn't understand our relationship.

"With all due respect, , neither of us is the experimental type. We've found who we want to spend our lives with, whether it be tomorrow or a hundred years from now. I would ask you to accept that for your daughter's sake. She values your opinion greatly."

Her jaw clenched and her knuckles tightened and released in the same expression of annoyance as Bella's.

"Edward, you're a nice kid. Considering how shy Bella is, I'm rather amazed she managed to catch your attention. I tried to throw boys at her for years, and they might as well been invisible. Then she packs off for god-forsaken Forks and lands the town hunk within weeks. When you all broke up I'd never heard of a girl reacting in such a way over a high school boyfriend. This is way too serious, and the only way this will end is with her stuck in bad marriage with a fat belly as her friends have the time of their lives. The best thing you two could do is walk away now."

Every expletive Emmett had ever taught me battered against my lips, trying to free themselves to be hurled at the selfish woman in front of me.

I allowed some of my fury to cross my face. The hardened glare in my eyes and the rigid set of my mouth could hardly hide my displeasure.

"I'm sorry, but at what point did Bella become a stand-in for your life?"

Color washed up her cheeks and her blood pounded as thoughts narrowed in anger.

"How _dare _you_!_"

"I beg to differ. How dare _you_. You have sought your own happiness first at every turn. You allowed Bella to take on the responsibilities of two parents while you lived in your own whimsical world. You treated her as your girl friend to gossip with, while never once giving her the support of a mother. Now this one time in her life she has asked something of you, solely for herself, and you dare to deny her?"

Where Bella would be reduced to sputtering, Renee was spitting mad.

"You are _children_. You have no idea what you want or what's best for you, so no, I will _not_ support this insanity!"

Her voice had escalated into a shrill shout that carried throughout the whole house, waking Bella in the process.

I rapidly collected my futile temper and lowered my voice. My shoulders slumped and my head fell in defeat.

I would cave to this woman to spare Bella from this outburst.

"Please accept my apologies, I was out of line, and immaturity will hardly prove my point. I see we are at an impasse. You are unable to concede, and our wedding will go on with or without you. Therefore we will be flying home in the morning."

I internally raged at Renee at that moment, but it was nothing akin to the hatred I felt towards putting Bella in this position. I had lied to her, sides would have to be taken. And while I could say with every confidence that she would choose us, this would be a black mark on our white day.

I turned to go upstairs, only to be met by what I had hoped to avoid most; Bella wrapped in a blanket, witnessing our stand-off.

Her face was pale, but her eyes were dry. She reached for my hand as she addressed her mother.

"I've supported you my whole life, even when I knew you were making a mistake. I've stuck up for you and cheered you on and helped you when it all fell apart. It's your turn now, to hold my hand, and cry with me while I walk down the aisle."

"Bella, baby, you know I love you and just want the best for you."

Renee's mind took in every connection of our bodies. In her mind we had a gravitational pull towards one another. Even as she spoke, she saw the unbreakable bonds between us, and the rapidly withering ones between her and her daughter.

Before speaking, Bella released her grip on me, and went to grasp Renee in a tight embrace.

"I love you too, Mom, but my loyalties are with Edward."

She kissed her mother's cheek and squeezed her once more before whispering, "Goodbye."

As she passed me, she paused only to inhale my scent and brush her tremblings fingers against the back of my hand. She then ascended the stairs without a backwards glance. The remains of her tattered maternal relationship were left behind her.

Before following, I pulled a folded piece of paper with from my pocket and handed it to Renee.

"The invitation still stands. This is flight information for you and Phil, if you choose to come. Please give her that, no one else on this earth deserves happiness more and that girl up there needs her mother one last time."

Renee's thoughts were scattered trying to process the whole tumultuous affair. She gave away nothing to assuage my guilt in the matter, and the situation was in her hands. Whether she would be there for her daughter was anyone's guess.

The time for Bella's sacrifices had come.

And I would do my damnedest to make them worth it.

* * *

**Inspired By** (no actual references this time)

Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gently into that Good Light"

John Lennon, "Mother" (included on the Atlas playlist for this chapter, but by Christina Aguilera in respect for it being from Bella's perspective.)

**Chapter Notes:**

**Um, yeah, kind of a very different Atlas chapter. Edward had a case of the rage over what he saw as injustices towards Bella. Not really the fluff you all were expecting, huh? I ask that you keep in mind that this *is* AU, and I know that in Breaking Dawn, Renee was ok with the marriage, but we'd had a lot of build up to her *not* approving of it. We also know from SM that she is flakey and irresponsible, and it is not all together unlikely those two characteristics could come off as carelessly bitchy, even if it were never intentional..**

**Anyway, tell me what you think. About Edward, Bella and Renee's actions...about the emotions involved...just let me hear from you all!**


	13. Lies

**Author's Notes:**

Sorry for the delay everyone. This chapter was a beast so I've split it in half. You would've lost the important parts of this chapter if I'd left it. The good news is I'm half-way done with part two, and it will be coming shortly thereafter.

________________________________________________________________________

"Edward, I'm getting mighty tired of seeing my daughter come through this door looking like that."

Bella was passed out in my arms, her face puffy and tear stained from the crying she'd tried to hide. We'd left Jacksonville almost immediately after the stairwell confrontation, and she had kept her face averted for the majority of the trip. She'd fallen asleep halfway between Seattle and Forks, and not desiring to wake her, I once again found myself carrying a distraught and exhausted Bella into Charlie Swan's home.

I was simply thankful he hadn't reached straight for the shot-gun.

"It wasn't me this time, I promise."

Charlie mentally decided I had a few minutes before he began tearing my head off for the state I brought her home.

"Go set her down in her room and come back, I think it's time you and I finally had a talk."

Of course, a week shy of my wedding was naturally the prime time to get the third degree.

Regardless, I carried her upstairs into a bedroom that no longer felt like hers. Bella's room didn't have pale blue walls or a tiny bed; it had a black leather couch against a wall of windows. Her home was in my room, but now more than ever, she needed the comfort of her familiar past. Charlie's house would hopefully let her transition into a Cullen, with the reminder that her previous life wasn't completely comprised of worthless bastards.

I laid her on the bed and tucked her in without her waking. As gently as possible I wiped the tear tracks from her face and kissed her forehead. I silently prayed that after our wedding the tears would pass, but whether they did or not, she would soon be without them. Until then, it was best to let them fall.

As long I was here to catch them.

Assuming Charlie didn't try to stake me for her being upset again...

I sighed and kissed her one more time, and returned to the firing squad. Charlie was waiting in the kitchen with two cups of coffee. The day had been so interminable for even a vampire that I hadn't realized we'd arrived home right when he would be preparing for work. I sat across from him and gripped the mug, letting it warm my hands, and braced for the next parental onslaught.

"You want to tell me what happened in Florida?"

His mind was mentally cataloging my health as he wondered about the injuries Bella had told him I'd sustained. I rubbed my arm and grimaced to make it appear that it bothered me after carrying her upstairs. After satisfying his prying, I prepared to tell him his ex-wife was the devil.

"To say it didn't go well would be an understatement. Mrs. Dwyer responded to our news as well as you would have expected."

Charlie groaned and leaned back into his chair.

"Did she go into hysterics or pretend it wasn't happening?"

"The latter. We told her when we arrived and she shrugged it off. Bella then over-compensated to get her approval, working herself to the bone, until I finally had enough and spoke to Renee myself."

A mirthless laugh escaped him, as his lip quirked up.

"Please tell me you didn't try to rationalize with her."

At my nod, he laughed again.

"Son, you've got a lot to learn about women."

The century old vampire inside of me wanted to bristle. I'd lived with three women for longer than his lifetime, and that was discounting being privy to the thoughts of almost every single female in the world. It was a fair assessment that I understood them remarkably better than he did. Yet this was Charlie's strange variation of an olive branch; complaining about women as a form of male bonding.

"Fortunately Bella is kind enough to be patient with me while I learn."

"She is that. Her mother never knew the definition of the word; used to drive me up a wall. She'd jump thoughts faster than I could blink."

Recalling Renee's mind, I was struck by Charlie's insight. Considering the numerous times Bella and I had lied and pulled the wool over his eyes, it was enlightening to see that when he so chose, he could be a rather astute man.

"Yes I noticed that. She dismissed the wedding so rapidly it was if it ceased to exist in her reality. It was trying for a few days, but didn't come to a head until I confronted her last night. To summarize, she'd prefer we, er, well let's say she'd prefer us to live in a fashion I'd rather not discuss with Bella's father."

Charlie's grin grew smug at my hedging.

"Did she rant about marriage being a chauvinistic tradition designed to make women 'subservient'? Or did she forget that when she became a cougar?"

"She was more promoting free love as long as it didn't produce a child."

He shook his head and set his coffee down, slopping three ounces of liquid onto the table.

"Did Bella hear this?"

"She said it directly to her, but to be fair she never declared Bella a mistake."

His brows scrunched into a scowl as he silently agreed those were semantics.

"No but she sure as hell implied it didn't she? I hope she knows Renee loves that girl more than life, even if she sucks at showing it. She never regretted having Bella, only marrying me."

Scenes of Renee's final dismissal of Charlie, as she stormed out of the house with a suitcase and a crying child, swam through his mind. She'd done a number on him that he still hadn't fully recovered from.

"I think Bella knows she loves her in her own way. But I'm quite aware of her anti-marriage views. I had some difficulty persuading Bella to agree precisely because she feared Renee's reaction."

"Can't say I'm surprised she feared something stable. I imagine Renee drove it home pretty hard. She felt caged in Forks preparing for a baby while everyone else was heading back to college."

Finally, here was the opportunity for a pressing question of mine to be answered.

"Why did she marry you then?"

He smiled and reflected on happier times of him and Renee's youthful antics. They were young and in love without a plan in their heads. As he remembered the night he proposed to her in the back of his pick-up in La Push, they were both pie-eyed. It was a stark contrast to the reserved and stoic man in front of me.

"She loved me and it was an adventure. That woman could make anything seem possible. So we got married and she thought we'd go see the world. But my folks got sick, and she got pregnant and the only unknown we were traveling into was adulthood. Not really what she had in mind."

Charlie's mind remained in the past, recalling his early days at the police department to pay for diapers for his baby, and medicine for his parents. It was a difficult situation at best, and at such a young age it was not altogether surprising someone like Renee resented it. It was hardly the fairy tale I imagine she thought she was jumping into.

The enigma of their relationship and Bella's own insecurities were becoming clear. Bella had replaced Charlie, putting her head down and doing what needed to be done to support her mother, all while growing up to hear that marriage meant the end of all her freedom. Renee assumed I would do to Bella what she believed Charlie did to her, only she never realized she was the one caging her daughter. It didn't matter that she wanted her to date and be reckless; for someone like Bella, it was forcing her into a mold she'd never fit, all to appease her mother.

"Charlie, I hope you're aware this is a very different situation. I'd follow Bella anywhere and give her any and everything in my power."

He smiled wanly only after I realized I'd implied that _he_ had not done as much for his wife.

"Do you really think I'd be letting you marry her if I thought otherwise? You and Bella are nothing like me and Renee. For one you've got your heads screwed on pretty tight, and secondly, well as you can see, she and I can live just fine without one another. We already know you and Bella can't."

He was stretching the truth about living without Renee. As 'bat-shit crazy' as she was, he still missed her, and the man he was when they were together. I let it slide though, since he provided me with an opening to a conversation we'd needed to have for months.

"I suppose that's really what you wanted to speak to me about that then?"

He tucked his thumbs into his belt loops and stared me down.

"How about you tell me why you broke my baby girl, and then I'll see about fixing things with Renee for you."

He'd already decided to call Renee the first chance he got to 'convince' her to come. Judging by the sinister humor this thought provoked within him, my curiosity was insatiable as to what he thought he could do to change her mind. Though knowing wallflower Charlie, he probably had enough dirt to bury her.

And on the subject of leaving Bella, he could put me ten feet under as well.

My head sunk into my shoulders as I rearranged the scenario to be as honest as possible with Charlie.

"Bottom line? I was an ass."

"That's a true fact, and the first step is admitting it. Keep going."

I don't think he'd mind if I just sat there and demeaned myself before him. The fouler the things I said the more he'd probably agree, but while they'd all be true, they'd be counterproductive.

And I was more than slightly scared of what Bella would do if she heard me.

Instead I wove a story that implied as much of my responsibility as an eighteen year old could legitimately claim.

"Carlisle had an offer to move to L.A. which he put to a family vote. In the end it came down to my decision, because I was the one with the most to lose here. The last thing I'd ever wanted to do was be without her, but I saw no alternative. When I informed her we were moving she decided to come with us. I won't lie and tell you I didn't wish we could just run away and ignore everything. However, I refused to ruin her life, so I told her I didn't want her and that it would be best if we never saw one another again. I didn't want her interminably waiting. I wanted to free her of our relationship that held her back from so many things, and let her go forward and live her life."

I looked him in the eye and sealed my fate, one way or another.

"I didn't want to trap her in a life she'd come to regret."

He remained silent for some time before he spoke, contemplating his conflicting thoughts.

"As her father who would have shot you for running away with her, I agree with your decision, if not the way you handled it. From one man to another though? You're a dumbass."

He may be a man of few words, but he certainly didn't mince them.

"Yes, to say the least."

"So she fell apart because you thought you were doing what was best for her?"

"To be fair, it nearly killed me as well."

He shook his head and contemplated how his past year had been dictated by our 'melodrama.'

"I hope you realize that a whole lot of folks' lives would've been a lot better off if you'd talked to her about this. I appreciate you trying to look out for her, but if you don't know that she's a smart and damn stubborn girl, then you don't deserve her."

I leaned forward across the table to ensure he understood.

"I have not, nor will ever deserve her. But I have learned my lesson. She's chosen me and what she wants, she gets."

"You're still an idiot. A deaf, dumb, blind mute could have told you she'd follow you anywhere. She'd leave me, Jake, her friends, and her mom behind in a flash to do it."

I felt a deep stab of remorse at his words. Unbeknownst to him he'd predicted his very near future. She was leaving everything to be with me, and while I knew it would pain her greatly in the short run, eventually her memories of them would fade. Charlie's would not, and he'd remember his disappearing daughter until the day he died.

All so that she and I could be happy.

If I were a less selfish man I'd say the sacrifices were too high. Too many people would be hurt by us, and she had a great deal to lose. It had been one of the primary reasons I'd left and refused to change her for so long. However, that time had passed. I'd nearly lost her more times than I could handle, which arguably was even thinking about being without her.

The bodies would be stacked far and wide in our wake, but I had to tell myself it was worth it, that she wanted it, and that I could have it.

Because I refused to turn back now… I just had to convince Charlie first.

"I was unfathomably wrong, and I broke both of us, but for some reason she has forgiven me and consented to take my name. Though if I ever attempted to think for her again she'd probably start removing limbs."

"Rightly so, I'd loan her the chainsaw to do it too."

It was a testament to Charlie's will that I didn't doubt for a moment that he meant it.

"Listen Edward, I think we both know I've had a bone to pick with you for a while. Within a month of her getting here, she started lolling around with you and suddenly nothing else mattered. You may be respectful and protective, but you're different and way too intense, and not really the guy any father wants his daughter dating."

So briefly he couldn't possibly see it, I rolled my eyes at the sky. Right about now, I doubt even Alice could foresee me catching a break in this parental disaster.

"I'm rather aware of your feelings, but all those attributes mean that I'll be a damn fine husband to her."

He set his coffee down and leaned back in the chair with a sigh.

"Now that's something I can't deny. I don't understand you two, primarily because not even Renee ever got my hackles up like that. But while I may not be that deaf, dumb, blind mute... I know when to stop fighting the inevitable. I tried, but no matter how much I grounded or threw Jake at her, all she saw was you."

He'd finally given up the fight and was stepping aside. In his mind he thought he had as much chance of keeping her as he did of making Renee happy. He'd resigned himself to the fact that Higginbotham women weren't destined to stay with him for long. With a jolt I realized that on the day of our wedding, Bella would have been with Charlie the exact same amount of time he'd been married to Renee.

Jasper should be singing his hallelujahs that he wasn't here to feel the guilt that was building inside of me.

I decided to laugh it off to keep the wallowing at bay..

"Charlie, don't strain yourself trying to understand it. We're freaks of nature. Two eighteen year olds getting married before college is antiquated and strange. Moreover that we know what we want and are too confident in it to waste any time not being married. Besides, we're rather high maintenance, and tend to make the lives of those around us difficult when we're apart."

He chuckled as I intended, and mumbled, "damn right you are," under his breath before again turning serious.

"I suppose the point is I won't fight you two about this. I don't like it, but she could be fifty, and I still wouldn't want to give her up. And I'm more than positive that once she marries you, I'm not going to see her again. But I don't reckon there's much I can do about that besides be a bit sad I never really got to be her dad."

Through his comments about me being different, his apprehension about the strength of our bond, and his own natural intuition, he didn't just think, but rather _knew_ this was the end.

Somehow I doubted, "Sorry I'm marrying, killing, and changing your daughter and making your life hell," would be the appropriate sentiment here.

Unfortunately, Bella and I hadn't had a chance to discuss what we would tell her parents. We'd been so swept away with the fact that we were even getting married that the logistics had slipped even my mind. I wanted to exist in a blissful reverie that I was getting everything my heart desired within a week. Instead the world, as it is ever prone to do, bombarded us from all sides. I didn't want to do this without her, but perhaps I could at least pave the way, and shoulder some of the anxiety from the pain we were about to inflict.

"I think I can speak for Bella when I say that you have, and will always be her father, whether she is with you or not. I can't apologize for taking her away from you, but I can thank you for helping to raise her the way you have. I think you gave her the only chance she'd get to be a teenager, and based on what I experienced in Florida, she blossomed here. You gave her that, and the quiet support she needed. Please don't ever doubt that."

If Charlie Swan were an emotional man, I think he would've been choked up. His thoughts may have betrayed his relief that he'd made any kind of mark in her life, but externally he merely rubbed the back of his hand against his mustache and glanced away. He didn't acknowledge my statement outside of a terse nod, but it had been heard. For all of his mistakes and ridiculous posturing, he was the only person who'd ever been any kind of a parental figure to Bella, and I knew she was a better person for it.

Eventually he spoke, slightly changing the subject to not embarrass himself.

"While you may be half clueless, you do know Bella. Is she going to be alright after what her mother said?"

"She's hurting right now, and trying to hide it from me. If I had to hazard a guess I think she believes I'll take it to mean her being upset equates to her not wanting to be married. But she laid the law down to Mrs. Dwyer, and there have been few times I've been prouder of her...outside of her punching Jake that is."

His mouth tugged upwards as he played the mental movie of Bella taking on Goliath.

"Good, I worried she'd take it to heart. I know time is running out, but I'd like to help. Whether it's kicking Renee's ass or maybe chipping in with the wedding. I'm her father and it's the right thing to do."

I'd never been inclined to hug men who weren't in my family, but in that moment, he joined those ranks. If not for what he was doing for Bella, then for the looks on Alice and Esme's faces when they were told to work around Charlie's aesthetics for the wedding.

Though I think if I tried he'd contemplate grabbing the shotgun again.

"She's rather vulnerable right now, and the stress of the wedding isn't going to help that much. We both have a number of good-byes approaching, and I think she needs some time with her past so she can make that transition. She won't accept me leaving her here by herself, but if you don't mind me availing myself of your couch, I think her spending the last few days with you is what she needs."

Awkwardly he scratched his head and calculated whether he was comfortable with me staying the night. He wasn't, but he hadn't been when he let her essentially move in with us either. Once he reminded himself that soon we'd be sharing much more than a roof, the couch seemed a brilliant idea.

Granted, I would still be in her bed every night, but this way we would drastically reduce the childish sneaking around. It was hard to convince others you were mature enough to be wed when you still had to hoodwink your fiancée's father.

"I have to get to work, but I'll take off the rest of the week. There are a lot of things I always meant to do with her, and it's better late than never. I suppose if you like, you could join us."

His grumbled acquiescence was hardly a welcoming invitation, and I took the hint.

"I appreciate it, but I've got to curb my mother and sisters. Someone has to keep them from throwing engagement parties, rehearsal dinners, and a wedding fit for a monarch."

Charlie stood and dropped his cup into the sink while he spoke.

"Doesn't the...er, bride's family normally do one of those things? The Swan's aren't much for parties, but we've got deep roots in this community, and I don't want to shirk tradition just because I'm a grumpy old man."

"_You_ want to throw us a party?"

His shoulders twitched at the incredulousness in my voice. Emmett and Jasper would probably buy Bella and I our own island for the opportunity to witness a Swan family reunion. Though having seen Jasper in his awkward stages, Emmett would probably go double or nothing on it. Alice would be enraged, Esme and Carlisle would be delighted at the normalcy, and Bella would be touched.

Oh yes, we needed to have a Charlie Swan engagement party.

"I suppose a few folks could come over for a fish fry. It's about all I can cook so it'll have to do. The backyard's big enough to have your folks, the Blacks and Clearwaters, and some of your friends from school. It won't be anything fancy like that party Alice threw, but it might be nice."

I stood and offered Charlie my now warmed hand.

"We'd appreciate that...Dad."

At my wise ass smirk, he dropped my hand and mostly-playfully gave me a shove.

For the sake of diplomacy I let myself fall backwards.

"Watch yourself kid, I can still have you arrested."

________________________________________________________________________

Charlie left for work, and with equal parts guilt and lightness I sprang up stairs to Bella.. She'd either be riveted or horrified by my conversation with her father.

She sensed me before I even arrived at the bed, as her body instinctively rolled towards me. I leaned down to kiss her brow right as her eyes blinked open. While free of tears, they still depicted resignation.

I dropped the kiss on her forehead and sunk into the bed, winding myself around her. She couldn't turn away if I had her locked in a position facing me.

"Hi."

Bella snuggled closer and echoed my greeting, still trying to hide. I rubbed her back and prepared to wait her out.

It only took her nosiness getting the better of her, which translated to forty-six heartbeats later.

"What were you talking to Charlie about?"

"Nothing of much importance. He called me a dumbass, I called him dad. In-law business as usual."

That popped her head up rather quickly, and more importantly curved her delectable lips into an impish grin.

"Did you two bond? Are you going to start fishing on the weekends and watching baseball together?"

"The only team worth watching are the White Sox, and I'd be hate to have to bite Charlie for his Mariners fanaticism. Ergo no. Secondly he'd use me as bait after I permanently frightened all the fish in a fifteen mile radius away. And finally, we may not have 'bonded' but he's throwing us an engagement party. Coincidentally with fish and baseball."

"My father, Charlie Swan, is hosting a party?"

"For our nearest and dearest."

Despite her loveliness, she was gaping like one of the fish that would soon be served.

"Explain. Now. Please."

"We cleared the stale air of the last two years and came to an understanding of sorts. He's aware of Renee's reaction, and is rather positive that you'll be disappearing after the wedding. This is his way of being supportive and giving you a proper farewell."

"So it's our good-bye party. I guess it's better to do it now than at the wedding reception. It might be nice to not ruin all the pictures crying over people."

"Our sisters would be proud of your sensibility for the wedding photos."

I felt her faint smile against my shoulder before she spoke.

"I guess we're really doing this dog and pony show, aren't we?"

"Mmhmm. Well at least the dogs, I know Charlie's planning to invite his friends from the reservation. I'll see what I can do about getting you a pony though. You'd look quite adorable riding around on your little chestnut horse."

She poked me, and bent her finger backwards in the process.

"Clearly what I need is a pony to draw more attention to myself. Excellent planning."

I kissed her now bruised finger, letting my chill ease the sting.

"As if everyone won't be watching you already. You are marrying the town hunk after all..."

Her face withdrew into itself, signifying it was apparently far too soon to tease our way past things. I cupped her head in my palm, and drew it up to look at me.

"Are you going to talk to me about this yet? I'm not going to overreact and do something ridiculous because you're upset about your mother."

"Promise?"

I linked my little finger around her ring-clad one.

"Fiancé pinky promise."

Apparently that amused the hell out of her, because her face turned red, her whole body started shaking, and I briefly feared she was suffering from apoplexy.

"Did Edward Cullen just do a pinkie promise?"

Indignantly I removed my hand from hers.

Last time I'd try to incorporate modern colloquialisms into my speech pattern for her...

She took back my hand and tried to quiet her laughter.

"I'm sorry, that was...highly unexpected, since we're not actually six year olds from the 90's..."

At my harrumph, she pressed her still laughing lips to mine to make up for her mockery.

When she unfortunately pulled away for something as trivial as oxygen, our moods were drastically improved.

"Are you mad at me for keeping this to myself?"

I shook my head no and brushed her now messy hair away from her face.

"I'm not backing out of anything, I just can't deny that it would've made things easier if I could move on with everyone's support. I know it's a lot to ask for, and no one else is aware of our rather special circumstances, but it would be nice if they could be happy for us...if my final memories of her could be pleasant instead of...well...crappy."

"I hope you know I'd do anything to fix this for you."

Her breath warmed my chin as she released a pent up sigh.

"Of course I do, and thank you for trying, though if it were over anything else I'd have been laughing hysterically watching you try and reason with her."

Despite my mind reading abilities, I was the last to know that using logic with Renee was as futile as trying to keep Carlisle away from medical mystery books.

Choosing to ignore her wisdom, I asked her the most imperative question yet.

"You know that not one iota of what she said was true, though? You're not secretly wallowing in this and deeming yourself unworthy or anything, right?"

She was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts before she answered.

"To be honest I don't really know what to say to that. Was this a very rude awakening? Do I hate her a bit for what she said about you? Does it hurt like hell that she can't be bothered to support me? Am I sick and tired of trying to simultaneously be like her to get her approval, while not making her own mistakes? Do I kind of hate myself for still wishing I could please her after all of this? Yes to all of the above. This whole thing _sucks_."

Intrinsically I wanted to shake the ludicrous thoughts from her head. Nothing infuriated me more than to hear her doubt herself. Listening to her catalog her failures and shortcomings on the cliff last week had been a severe lesson in control. If the rational side of my brain hadn't shouted that we'd never get past anything if we didn't let out our truths, I would've silenced her with that kiss much sooner. Unfortunately it was as vital to our relationship now, that I sit back and let this vitriol spew from her mouth. Though I didn't have to agree with it.

"Please don't hate yourself, if nothing else know that my whole world centers around you, and everything she said was ludicrous. The whole time she was saying those things she was literally thinking of her own past."

Bella's shoulders were still tense as she rolled closer to my body, seemingly trying to crawl inside of me.

"Can I please be pissy for a while? You're being all rational and making it hard to hang onto my self-righteous angst."

I kissed her nose and held her even tighter.

"You can rage all night if you want. I'll listen with rapt attention as long as you promise me that in an hour from now, when you've forgiven her and are hurt that your mom might not come, that you'll be alright."

A tiny voice spoke from my chest in the faintest of whispers.

"Please don't make me lie to you."

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

The second part of this chapter will follow shortly after this one, and will be the last one before the wedding. I realize a number of you all problems with how I treated Renee, but I stand by it. Her characterization could have gone either way in Breaking Dawn, and what we did know about her could very much explain how Bella came to be an insecure as she was.

Now onto Charlie, do y'alls hearts just break for him? Poor man is losing is only daughter. Do you think he'll be able to convince Renee to come? What'd you think of the glimpse of his back story, and his talk with Edward? Do you think Bella's going to be ok? Review and let me know!!

Also if you're interested, the Belly Award nominations are up: www[dot]thecatt[dot]net


	14. Lingering

A/N: I apologize for the delay, I was ill and cold-medicine OTC's + writing Atlas does not mix.

A huge thanks to EVERYONE who nominated Atlas for the Bellie Awards. It's up for Best T-Rated story and the new category "AU You Imagine as Canon." Thank you for all your support, and voting opens on July 15th!

Also, many thanks to my sister and Michellephants for wading through this monster.

________________________________________________________________

Bella's anger had slipped away, and she fell into what Jasper called a lingering 'down and out funk.'

Three and a half days later I was still rather unsure of the precise definition of that term. She hadn't let it show to Charlie as she threw herself into his abnormally normal father-daughter outings. The two of them set-out each morning to various locals throughout the Olympic Peninsula, from the shores of Ruby Beach to the row-boats at Lake Crescent. He couldn't give her the world, but he could show her his before she was no longer a part of it.

He also, to what I was sure to be my eternal punishment for speeding, showed her his top secret technique for hiding the cruiser along the straight-aways to catch the joyriders.

Charlie had even been making an effort to converse with her while they went sight-seeing. They certainly didn't delve into any wearisome emotional discussions, but he told her stories of growing up in Forks while she'd volunteered some of her more colorful ones with Renee. If I had to speculate, which I had done constantly in an attempt to help her, this 'funk' was only worsened by the sharing of stories about her mother. With each one, she remembered everything she loved and admired in the woman; her sense of fun and adventure and lightheartedness seemed to particularly resonate with Bella. While I saw it as her acting as if she were five, Bella was choosing to reinterpret it as her mother's whimsical nature.

Ultimately her turmoil boiled down to her desire for her mother to be a part of this once in her human-lifetime experience, and short of kidnapping her there was nothing I could do. In my attempt to change Renee's mind, I had exacerbated the situation. Now we found ourselves preparing for the engagement party in contemptuous surly moods, hardly fitting for the celebration at hand.

Fortunately, Bella hadn't taken out her depression on me or our wedding. When she and Charlie returned to the house each day, I was waiting at the door. Charlie tended to excuse himself as the Cullen family would invade in waves to discuss the ceremony, but he always made a point of saying goodnight and dropping a kiss on the top of Bella's head.

As the days had passed, Bella sunk further into herself. She was anxious and skittish, and any attempts to rouse her spirits resulted in her wallowing in her guilt. It was only in bed, as we lay wrapped around one another, kissing and talking long into the night, that the strange mood lifted.

Though the same couldn't be said for right now. She was pacing back and forth in her summer white sundress, her hair pulled back to the side and cascading down her shoulder.

She was stunning.

She was terrified.

The more her mood deteriorated, the more she was predisposed to blushing, tripping, and stammering. I had always wondered if that had been tied into her insecurities, and it would seem that I'd been correct. We were expected to arrive at Charlie's shortly, to face nearly everyone we knew, and the prospect had her in a conniption. This was not the woman who had proposed to me a week ago; she'd reverted into tense mess of a girl from the past few months.

And I wasn't going to tolerate it any longer. It would be an underhanded and manipulative move, but I'd never claimed noble intentions. I knew that she wanted us; her contentment and joy with me each night was palpable. It was only when the world filtered in that she fell apart, and it was up to me to remind her of what she had designated her priority.

The fact that it happened to be me was only a side benefit.

I stepped into her path and halted her stomping. My hands found their way to her shoulders and paused, waiting for her to look at me. When she finally did, my thumb grazed her jaw and cheeks until it reached her lip. With the slightest hint of pressure, I tugged it out from the teeth that were biting it raw.

"You need to tell me now if this is no longer what you want. With a few phone calls this can all be canceled and there will be nothing left for you to fret over."

Her eyes widened and her heartbeat accelerated into a staccato rhythm.

"Are you trying to cancel our wedding?"

"The closer we get to it, the more distressed you become, so I'm forced to assume that you're having second thoughts."

"Not about you, _never _about you."

She'd nuzzled closer to me, seeking solace from the demons plaguing her.

"Is it the people and parties? I know you're not one for attention, but you were the one insisting on making it a public affair. I can make arrangements for the Justice of the Peace, if you so desire."

I stroked her back, trying to ease the sting of my deceit, and partially hating myself for doing it. She glanced at me from under my chin, and hallelujah, I could see a spark in her eyes. Her little hands started traveling around my waist and sinking lower as she spoke.

"And miss the opportunity to show you off as _my_ fiancé to Jessica? I think not."

At the emphasis on 'my' she attempted to squeeze my rear, though with her strength all she succeeded in doing was lightly patting it, but she giggled nonetheless when my hips jutted forward and my eye brow raised.

There was my Bella.

"I see, you just want to marry me so you can fondle me in public....which suits me fine. I plan to return the favor ten-fold."

She kissed my chin and hugged me closer again.

"I'm just having a little difficulty going out there. I want to shout to the world that we're getting married, but at the same time I don't want to hear everyone whispering about it being a scandal. I know it's irrational, and I'll never see them again, and you're a thousand times more important...but old habits die hard."

Esme, who had been lingering by the linen closet past the point of necessity, apparently had enough of holding her tongue. She stormed into the room and stole Bella from my arms. She'd never been able to tolerate any of us doubting our worth.

"Bella, you are a Cullen now, and despite what anyone says, and I don't care if it's the Pope himself, there is _nothing_ shameful in marrying the man you love, regardless of your age. If they can't see it then they're blind or jealous."

In her mind, she half commended and half berated me for guilting Bella out of her bad mood. She knew better than to truly scold me for the ill advised deceit, sine she herself taught me the art of the guilt-trip. No one was more qualified to deliver one, than a woman who'd been a mother figure to young adults for decades.

Bella nodded her head, or attempted to in my mother's extraordinarily tight embrace.

"Besides, this will be fun. Charlie's put a lot of work into this, and it'll be your first family outing with us! We rarely get to go places, nonetheless parties as a family, and what better time to start than when we can introduce a new member!"

At the reminder of being a member of the Cullen family, Bella's back straightened and she stood taller. The awkward slumping posture of the past few days disappeared.

Bella Swan may be timid and worried over confronting a crowd of mixed opinions, but Bella Cullen was not. All the insecurity she'd redeveloped because of her mother's inanities was replaced with a stunning show of fortitude.

In a quiet voice that she knew I would still hear, she whispered in her ear.

"I love you, Esme. Thank you."

A choked sound emitted from our mother, and the last bit of space between she and Bella was closed. A nuclear bomb wouldn't have been able to separate them, as Esme repeated over and over again in her mind, how thankful she was for her daughter. She rocked Bella in her arms and returned her love.

When the two finally parted, there was a subtle confidence in Bella, and a sense of completion in Esme. I took both their hands and pulled them to the door.

"Come, ladies, Emmett's late for his play date."

________________________________________________________________

The Cullen family, for all our subterfuge, was nothing if not conspicuous.

As a one, all eight of us arrived in the Swan backyard, fashionably late. How seven creatures who could run to Mexico faster than most humans ate a snack, were unable to get out of the house on time baffled me. Between Esme's dithering over her fifteen casseroles, and Jasper's eight hour debate as to which music to bring with him, it had been nigh impossible to arrive on time.

We each entered carrying various picnic goods; food, music, sporting equipment and chairs. It was a lazy summer day with friends and food, playing games in the back yard. It was practically more American than vampires playing baseball...

That was, of course, if you took into account the fact that the party was more divided than East and West Berlin.

On the northern side of the yard were the comparatively small humans from Forks High. Angela was commenting to Ben what a beautiful love story Bella and I had, while he nodded and internally panicked that she was now expecting a ring. Jessica was alternating between making doe-eyes and glaring at Mike since their relationship was apparently still unsettled. Mike was too wrapped up with the baseball game on the flat-screen Charlie had propped in the shade, to notice her attention. Tyler and Eric were equally involved in the play-offs and were jumping up and down, screaming at the television.

The southern side was far taller though not necessarily more mature. Charlie stood to the side with Billy Black and watched the juvenile wolves frolic. Sam and Emily sat with Sue Clearwater, since her ever-charming daughter Leah refused to come. Seth, Brady, and Collin were currently a mass of tangled limbs denting Charlie's yard as they wrestled.

When the Cullens descended, though, the horseplay and cheering stopped on both sides of the yard as we stood in no-man's land between the two sides. Jasper promptly pictured a barren Texas town, with swinging saloon doors and a dried-out bramble bush rolling through dust lined streets. A sharp jab to his ribs reminded him that this was supposed to be a _party_ and not a showdown at the OK Corral.

Alice, oblivious to all things awkward, began barking orders for goods distribution. She piled food into the humans' arms directing them where to put them, and handed them the labeled tent cards to place beside each dish. Emmett was sent to artfully scatter chairs around the yard, and Jasper was to set-up the sound dock. Rose promptly vanished to the television and put it on mute, with a ferocious glare towards anyone who considered turning it back up. Esme and Carlisle, of course, went to play suburban in-laws with Charlie, and compliment him on the festivities.

This left Bella and I standing in the middle of the yard with all eyes on us. I expected her new-found Cullen confidence to deteriorate, but instead, she gripped my hand tighter and faced the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming. It means so much to us that you'd come out to celebrate our engagement with us."

An exceedingly smug grin lit up my face at her comment. In one statement she'd derailed the skeptics. The few minds that registered disdain at our nuptials and had come to gawk at the spectacle were to be disappointed. Her stomach was flat and her confidence in our marriage was tremendous. There was no awkward and stuttering Bella to gossip about. I lifted our connected palms and kissed her hand, directly on top of her ring. I looked down at her and every thought in my head vanished, or was at least set aside. She was proud of herself and it was magnificent.

As if on cue, Jasper pressed play, and Billy Idol's "White Wedding" blared through the speakers.

It would indubitably be an interesting evening.

________________________________________________________________

An hour later and Jasper's music choice had neither left the eighties nor its irrevent state of irony. As "Only the Good Die Young" played on, Charlie and Billy reminisced about their twenties, and fell into their cups. They were gathered around a tub of boiling oil over a Bunsen burner that looked more apt to burning witches than frying fish. Considering the blackened greasy trout-imposters they pulled out of it, Bella's fear of Charlie starving without her might be more accurate than not.

Unless of course Sue Clearwater had anything to say about it…

The pinch-faced widow with a man's hair-cut stared at Charlie as if he were the joints holding her upright. It seemed that Chief Swan had been quite busy while Bella had been living with us. According to Sue's mind, he'd been spending his evenings on the reservation, comforting her through his presence. Unbeknownst to him, he'd also been bonding her to him. She still desperately missed her husband, but her feelings towards Charlie strengthened with each passing day even if they hadn't slipped into the realm of romantic thoughts.

Unfortunately, Charlie would sooner cook a gourmet meal for Emmett than think about a relationship with his late friend's wife. Although that didn't necessarily imply that he lacked feelings for her, only the conviction to pursue them. Before taking irreversible actions though, I required a confirmation from my brother. I glanced slyly at Jasper, raising my eyebrow. His curiosity was piqued and he made his way toward me.

"I could feel you preparing to meddle from the kitchen. What are you drawing me into, and will it get me in trouble with my wife?"

It was times like these I wished Bella didn't own me so very thoroughly. It made it difficult to mock my brothers' fear of their mates when I was as equally wrapped around my own fiancée's finger.

"Alice is hardly my concern. He's not cognitively thinking of her at the moment, and I need to know if Charlie has any inclinations towards Sue."

He looked at me incredulously.

"You realize that you're potentially setting of events that could eventually lead to having Leah, the she-bitch-Clearwater as a step-sister-in-law?"

"Wouldn't it be worth it if only to make her have a blood-sucker brother-in-law?"

His approval was shown by throwing his arm around me, while he stared down Charlie and Sue as the chords of "Love is a Battlefield" began.

"Looks like I'll have to pull out my kerchief. and tie it over my head, and start a rousing rendition of 'Matchmaker.' He's got the makings of some deep feelings for her, but he's all but clueless about them."

I whistled under my breath for Alice, in hopes of acquiring her unique interpretation on the matter. She sauntered over with Bella on her arm, having just left the ever-dull company of the human contingency. The girls squeezed in between us and gave both of us suspicious looks.

"Bella wouldn't let me look, so tell me immediately what you two are scheming about."

Jasper tugged her into his arms, debating in vividly horrific detail all the ways in which he could erase her pout.

"Bella's daddy's got the hots for Sue over there."

Bella shuddered and hid from the disturbing thought of parental relations by snuggling into my side. If she were only privy to an eighth of the predilections I was forced to listen to, she would undoubtedly never leave my side.

"Could we never use the word 'hots' in reference to my father ever again?"

While Bella attempted to lobotomize herself in the crook of my shoulder, Alice envisioned Charlie's future without our influence. He went to work, he came home, he ate pizza, he watched the game, and he went to bed. He occasionally varied his routine on the weekends by going fishing, and from time to time he'd visit the reservation and run into Sue, who looked as bored and lonely as he did. It was a bleak existence as the man withered into old age with no family beside him. Finally the excruciating vision ended with Charlie lying alone in a hospital bed, with the only sign of his passing was the long solitary beep of a machine.

Alice's eyes met mine with a gleam of determination.

"You _will_ fix that. Save him from himself. He doesn't deserve that fate."

Bella jolted upwards and hit her head on my chin. Her face reflected only fear for her father and none of the pain of ramming herself against a rock. I kissed the infinitesimal lump on her head, and tried to ease the swelling.

Jasper, ever the helpful brother, didn't bother to send any calming waves her way, but instead used his own brand of logic to soothe her.

"Don't worry Bella; we're going to get you a new mama to make it all better."

"Because clearly having a third mother figure would make life easier. Now someone tell me what the hell is going on? Is Charlie going to get eaten?"

At Bella's question, Jasper started contemplating why she seemed obsessed with people being eaten, and as "Thriller" came on the demon-spawned stereo, he thought, to my dismay, that it would be a prime time to debate the nature of flesh eating monsters.

"You know, I don't know why you're so worried about folks being snacked on. Despite the whole biting bit, we don't chew on the flesh, it's more of a suction action, and not nearly as messy as you'd think. Unless of course you're concerned about the wolves, since they'd obviously consume the creature if they stopped for a nibble in their shifted form, but they don't strike me as the brain-eating types..."

In lieu of pinching my nose or running screaming from this horrow-show, I hugged Bella closer to me, taking comfort in her presence, and the frightening thought that she was the sole representative of the sane contingency at the moment.

"No one is going to eat or suck on Charlie, though I'm tempted to take a bite out of Jasper if he doesn't contrive a strategy to bring them together without outright manipulating their emotions. However, I believe there are deep and abiding feelings beneath the surface and a small nudge will suffice."

I could hardly fathom how my life had been reduced to getting Charlie Swan a date at my own engagement party. Yet, between the death glares of Alice, Bella's concern, and the inescapable fact that I owed that man my whole world, I knew Jasper and I would persevere to unite the pair.

Fortunately, I doubted it would take much. Sue's thoughts relayed how desperately she yearned to repay Charlie's kindness, by having him to dinner once Bella left. She feared he'd be as lonely in his empty house as she was, cooking for just herself. Leah and Seth were rarely home due to pack duties, and with Harry gone, her memories reflected the bitterness and loss she'd allow to swallow her whole. Charlie's presence had eased that, and she thought perhaps they could lean on each other. That was if she could only work up the morale to ask him over...

Therein lay the key to this whole comedy of errors. It would quite literally only take a little push.

"Bella, pour all your excess guilt out into a lecture about your father about eating right. Tell him how concerned you are that he'll live off pizza and have a coronary and die. And do it loudly, please."

"Edward, how is a discussion about congested arteries going to produce romance? Is this what you used as a pick-up line before me? Did you and Carlisle use to cruise vampire speakeasies before Esme? Is that how you two stayed bachelors for so long?"

I didn't deign her mocking with a verbal response, and instead chose to follow through on my earlier promise to grope her in public. Turning her around by her shoulders, I nudged her forward with one hand, and pinched her rear in payback with the other. She squeaked and jumped forward, glancing over her shoulder and _winking_ for the love of God.

"I reckon you don't want me sending that particular emotion towards those two, unless you want this party getting remarkably less kid friendly..."

"No, my irritation towards you would certainly be unwise to project..."

Of course the bastard couldn't let me have the last word, and was itching to loudly interrupt about sending out my lusty signals into the crowd.

"Jasper, just send Sue some damn encouragement."

I knew from past experience, that Bella, despite her abominable lying skills, could act remarkably well when her story was faceted in truth. She was undeniably concerned with Charlie's welfare, and didn't need to fake the tangent she was now laying on him. Sue, who had never been overly fond of Bella, found herself agreeing with the girl's devotion to keeping her father fed, even if she was running off with a bloodsucker. She continuously debated with herself if this was perhaps the opening she was looking for to invite Charlie to dine with her. A small boost from Jasper, and she found herself walking to Charlie and opening her mouth.

"Charlie won't be starving; I'll be feeding him down on the res."

I glanced at Jasper, who merely shrugged. He had sent her the barest amount of aid to get her moving. Apparently, the Clearwater widow was as brusque as her daughter. Bella, spying a way to tie this manner up without Charlie ever having to speak, responded to Sue for him.

"He'd love to, and that's very nice of you to look out for him. It'll certainly make me feel better to know he's being watched over."

By this point, Charlie was disgruntled and feeling thoroughly abused by all the women around him. He was mumbling, both internally and to Billy beside him, that he was a grown man who'd fed and watered himself for sixteen years without anyone else's help. When he began griping about how if he wanted vegetables, he'd add onions to his pizza order, Bella had left him in the capable dictatorial hands of Sue.

I gathered her back into my arms and kissed her forehead, as she looked up at me for confirmation on her exceedingly well done lecturing skills. I turned to my sister to receive the final word on the matter.

"Alice, we're awaiting the verdict, if you don't mind."

She closed her eyes, and searched Charlie's new future. It had numerous blank patches, signifying an ongoing relationship with wolves. The few scenes that were available to her, portrayed a laughing Charlie, sitting in a little boat, with Sue fishing beside him, both well into their elder years.

Alice jumped up and down and hugged all of us, ever over exuberant in her affection.

"He's going to be happy, Bella, you can rest easy now."

We thanked them both for their match-making assistance, and went to find a place to sit, away from everyone else to regroup. I settled under a tree, and helped Bella into my lap under the guise of protecting her dress. In reality I merely wanted to be closer to her.

"Are you feeling any better?"

She nodded her head as she took in all the people before us.

"I'm going to miss them though. There's a lot I've left unsaid and undone."

"Anything you'll regret?"

I probably should have asked this question far earlier, while I still had time to help her rectify or accomplish these things...or to buy her an inordinate amount of chocolate to distract her.

"Plenty and yet nothing at all."

"You're being exceedingly vague again..."

She sighed and quietly smiled up at me, taking my hands and wrapping them around her waist. I lowered my head to her shoulder, and tried to see the party through her eyes. The humans were blissfully normal, chatting amongst themselves, dancing to "Benny and the Jets," and inhaling the massive quantities of food Esme brought. The young wolves were playing football with Emmett, doing little to hide their enhanced capabilities. Rose had joined the game as a handicap to distract them, and while she scared the hell out of them, they continuously dropped the ball to ogle her. I made a mental note to be sure to mock her for a century or so for playing with the dogs.

Charlie and Sue were with Carlisle and Esme, as they awkwardly pretended they had something in common. My father had gone so far as to sip the foul smelling yeasty beer Charlie had offered him, while Esme staged a coup to take responsibility for the frying. Alice and Jasper watched the affair from the side-lines, and were keeping a running commentary on both how much beer Carlisle could consume without vomiting and how long until Rose started flashing some skin to give Emmett the advantage. Or Jasper was hazarding a guess, and Alice indulged him by not giving him the answers. Which were three and a quarter beers and approximately nine minutes until Rose's cardigan slowly began to be unbuttoned.

For us, it was blissfully normal, except for perhaps cloying inspiration of "Don't Stop Believin'" playing in the background.

"Just look around us. For the last two years we've had nothing but trials and tribulations, and now finally it's all working out and we're leaving it behind. There aren't going to be anymore picnics with Alice trying to give boy advice to Jessica, or Sam discussing strategy with Jasper, or Sue actually attempting to not grimace. I kind of wish we could have spent our time doing this instead of having turf wars or hiding in secrecy. So maybe I regret that, and the fact that I kept all of us apart."

"Bella, look at it this way. We wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for you. Vampires are designed to kill humans, and werewolves were made to destroy vampires. It's a never-ending circle of death, and instead we're eating cake together. That's because of you. So look at it and be happy; you've done something incredible."

She turned around and looked at me as if I'd just told her Rose had won a Miss Congeniality award.

"If, by incredible, you mean being the only girl on earth who would be such a walking disaster as to end a century old riff between vampires and werewolves because she attracted an entire army of starving newborn vampires. Clearly I have a future in diplomacy."

"Perhaps I won't be sending you to the UN anytime soon, but the fact of the matter is, we get to leave on a high note. We've been granted clemency on the treaty and have permission to change you, and the family can move slowly from here at their leisure. The humans think we're going to Dartmouth, and for some reason that not even he is thinking about, your father isn't asking too many questions, therefore we won't have to rush to fake your death."

Bella turned to look at me, anxiety written plainly across her face.

"I don't know how to feel. I'm fit to burst from joy at marrying you and starting our lives. Then ten seconds later I'm overwhelmed with guilt for leaving everyone behind. I've got mood swings to rival yours."

I collected her fidgeting hands in my own and made light of the situation.

"We could always sync our moods and go bother Jasper. His emotional projection is a favorite Cullen party trick. I don't think Jessica would mind if we made Mike a bit more hormonal..."

She both smiled and shuddered at the suggestion, making a comically grotesque face in the process.

"Since when are you the one incapable of being serious?"

I shifted her in my lap until our faces met.

"Love, we're getting married in two days, and then we're spending an entire year by ourselves, during which time I get to spend _every_ second of _every_ day getting to know _every_ inch of your soon-to-be sparkling skin."

I paused to emphasize my words with kisses to every inch of her face, hopefully distracting her from the stares we were receiving from the majority of the party, and the fact that "Love Shack," had just begun.

"If, in the meantime, I need to hold your hand through this transition and shield you from the musical antics of our clinically insane siblings, then so be it. All the hurt and absurdity of these past few weeks are worth it, so why would I be anything less than jovial?"

"Does this means you're not upset with me for being crazy and weird lately?"

I couldn't help but laugh. She was by and large the least ridiculous aspect of our lives lately, and if I begrudged her the struggle of adjusting to all the changes her life was undergoing, then I hardly deserved her or her sacrifices.

"Bella, even when I _am_ upset with you, I'm not _really_ upset with you, and I'm certainly not now. Come on, let's go join the fray. You owe me a dance; it's been nearly a year since I've forced you to show off your remarkable skills."

She gave me a dubious look, but stood anyway, offering me her hand. I gave it a slight tug and led us into the middle of the party, ignoring her frown as she realized we were drawing even more attention to ourselves. When I pulled her closer, with perfect timing, "Like a Virgin" began to play. Her lips began to twitch before she dropped her head onto my chest, where her shoulders then began to shake, and little snorting gasps of breath reverberated against me. Before long she was keeled over laughing so hard tears were pouring down her face.

I took a perturbed step back, not wanting to indulge in Jasper and Alice's practical joke any longer. They had managed to steadfastly avoid thinking about it, but I could only imagine Alice had pre-screened the party, and after enthusiastically informing Jasper of the events, he made the play-list accordingly. Of course, being as anal retentive as he is, he timed it down to the second to each moment in the party.

My menacing glare in his direction alluded to my displeasure before I could stalk to the other side of the yard and throw him into a tree. However, before I replanted the Redwood with Jasper's head, a small, warm hand took mine, and a flash of a white dress spun in the corner of my eye.

Bella apparently wanted to dance to this shining excuse for music, and an effervescent goofy grin graced her face as she twirled around, her dress swirling outwards in a bell while she tripped over her own feet. She was giggling and looked like a precocious little girl reveling in all eyes being on her. It was such an un-Bella- like sight, that I had little choice but to grasp her hand, spin her in close, channel my inner virgin dance moves, and laugh along with her.

She sang along off key about feeling 'shiny and new' when I touched her, while Jasper and Alice, Rose and Emmett, and even Angela and Ben joined us. All the men looked pained, but would sooner chew off their own foots than disappoint the joyful women in their arms. Esme was off to the side-lines tapping her feet and throwing side-long glances at Carlisle, trying to give him the hint that it would be socially acceptable for the parents of the groom to imbibe in a little Madonna as well. I couldn't help but smirk at the less-than kind thoughts my father was sending towards Jasper for his music choice, as he took Esme into his arms.

I returned my attention to my fiancée, and dipped her nearly to the ground.

"Are you happier now?"

The gleam in her eyes and the healthy color in her cheeks, not to mention the large smile on her face, answered for her. She wasn't happy, she was giddy. Though considering the way she was stumbling around, I halfway wondered if she were tipsy...

She lifted her head and kissed me, ignorant to the catcalls her actions spawned.

"It's all going to work out. I can feel it."

I picked her up and tucked her into me, slowing our movements to, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," and whispered in her ear.

"If we're together, it will _always_ work out."

She swayed against me, her arms linked behind my neck, playing with the ends of my hair. I sighed contentedly and drew her in closer.

"I already knew _that,_ you silly man. I just wasn't sure if it would for everyone else. But Charlie's going to eventually be happy and that relieves me. Seeing my school friends again only reminded me how little we have in common anymore. I wouldn't give up knowing them, but my life won't be incomplete without them, as horrible as that sounds. I'll also always feel a bit bad for Jake, but that ship has sailed. And as for my mother, it's her loss."

"Well speaking of Jake, I actually have some news about him."

She glanced up, not nearly as curious as I thought she would be. I'd spoken to Sam and Emily earlier, and while they'd merely mentioned him in passing, the Alpha's annoyed thoughts betrayed Jake's plans.

"Jacob and Embry are staying with his sister in Hawaii this summer. I'm curious to know how they managed to get there, but unfortunately Sam wasn't focusing on the minute details. Regardless, Jake came to him and said he needed to get away to be a teenager for a while. Sam had spent the past few weeks giving him pep talks about it nearly being statistically guaranteed he'd imprint eventually. Jake decided he was in no hurry to throw himself into settling down anytime soon after recent events. So he set off to Hawaii, and Embry went along for the ride. Emily thinks it might be the catalyst to help him heal, and perchance figure out who he is outside of his duties as a protector."

"Essentially, he took off to go pick-up girls and catch some waves under the guise of finding himself?"

Bella smiled as she spoke, and it wasn't a tight awkward attempt to appease me and hide her turmoil over Jake's disappearance. It was genuine happiness for her friend finally trying to move on. The last strand of irrational doubt inside me eased and slipped into oblivion. He was out of our life.

"More or less. While he has admittedly never been my favorite person, I'm happy for him. He's had an inordinate amount of responsibility thrust on his shoulders and deserves a break from it. Though I'm hard pressed to believe that even all the girls, on all the islands, could distract someone from _you_."

She looked at me as if I were certifiable and leaned up to kiss me for the sixteenth time today, only to be interrupted by the music being cut, and the clearing of her father's throat. Charlie was standing by the food table, shuffling his feet while surreptitiously shooting glances at Esme, who was sternly whispering that societal standards mandated that he make a speech.

"I uh, well I guess I ought to say something, since you all came out to celebrate with me. You already know Edward and Bella are getting married...which still shocks the hell out of me when I think about it for too long. When she showed up here last year, I hadn't even thought about her liking boys. But then she brought Edward home, and I guess he's an alright kid. He's not good enough for my baby girl, but he takes good care of her, and she's pretty stuck on him..."

This was perhaps the least enthusiastic speech I'd ever heard. If it weren't for the the fact that Charlie was refusing to make eye-contact with the crowd, and was continuously rubbing his neck as he spoke, I'd think he were ambivalent to the whole process.

"She's marrying into good people though. You're hard pressed to find a better family than the Cullens, and they treat her like their own. I can't say I like the thought of losing her, but if I were forced to choose someone to hand her over to, I guess it would be him. He won't let anyone hurt her, including himself, and neither of them will let anything or anyone come between them. I don't think there are any two people out there who have a better chance of working out, no matter how young they are."

Charlie paused to gather his thoughts, which had turned sentimental as his entire

life with Bella passed through his mind; from the moment he found he was going to be a father, to the day they brought her home, when he taught her to walk, and when she walked out the door with her mother. Every bumbling and uncomfortable vacation she spent with him and each school picture that arrived in the mail was reflected on fondly. His breathing quickened and his eyes glistened as he recalled picking her sullen self up from the airport, and the nearly unnoticeable process of them adjusting their lives to living together. All of the shared dinners and silent baseball games combined with every smile and laugh they enjoyed together. As each memory ticked by, both happy and painful, he silently said his good-byes to his daughter. He finally paused and lingered on the scene of her sitting in his lap, a few short weeks ago, as he granted his consent for our marriage.

"Bells, the only thing I've ever wanted in my life is your happiness. When you're with Edward, you look like you're going to pop you're so damn happy, and there's nothing more I could ask for. I love you little girl. Take good care of her, Edward, she's the most important thing in the whole world to me."

Bella left my side, and ran into Charlie's arms. To give them a moment, Carlisle lifted his glass and made a toast.

"To Edward and Bella; may they have a _long_ and happy life!"

Beer and soda cans lifted all around us, as these people we'd never see again wished us well. Esme was mentally reminding me that it was customary to respond in kind, thanking Charlie for his hospitality. Emily Post had nothing on Esme when it came to the rules of decorum. I took a step forward, to collect my bride so we could make it together, when a shrill voice cut through the din of well wishers both in my mind and in the party at large.

"Oh, like mother like daughter! Bella Baby this looks just like _my_ wedding reception!"

At that moment, Jasper hit play.

"The Bitch is Back" echoed throughout the yard as Bella and I turned around to find Renee standing in the backdoor.

________________________________________________________________________

References Therein:

All 80s music, which if you wonder why, it's the decade Charlie was in his teens and twenties and Bella was born. It was Jasper's way of being both a hilarious douche, and tying it into Charlie's heyday.

"White Wedding" Billy Idol

"Only the Good Die Young" Billy Joel

"Love is a Battlefield" Pat Benatar

"Matchmaker" from the musical "Fiddler on the Roof"

"Thriller" Michael Jackson

"Benny and the Jets" Elton John

"Don't Stop Believin'" Journey

"Love Shack" B-52's

"Like a Virgin" Madonna

"Total Eclipse of the Heart," Bonnie Tyler

"Bitch is Back" LA Guns.

Next chapter is the wedding! As for this one...let me have it. This thing is so insane I don't even know what to prompt you with, so leave me a review and tell me what you think!


	15. Last

A/N:

Neither the Twilight Saga nor Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged belongs to me.

*waves* A huge hello and thanks to all the new faces that stopped in to say hello in the last chapter. It's fabulous to hear from those of you who have been reading from the beginning and those who have just started, thank you for all your support.

A big thanks to Michellephants for speedy betaing, and my sister who worked a double shift and still made time to read this over.

* * *

For eighteen years, I had found myself enraptured by the September sky. The azure of the heavens as Mother Nature heralded in a new season would captivate me with an unexpected spark of hope. The first time I looked up at that distinctly unique hue was September 13, 1987. There was no rhyme or reason for me to cease my hunt, and yet at 9:13 a.m. my entire being was drawn above the treeline of a small New England town. The sun was still rising, but its filtered light beget the most vibrantly saturated blue I had ever seen in my nearly seven decades of wandering this earth. In that moment I felt the rousing of my long dormant vitality. I had inexplicably felt right then, that perhaps someday there might be a reason for my existence.

Throughout the following seventeen years, for a second or for hours, regardless of where we were currently situated, at nine a.m on the thirteenth, it was cloudless and bright with the faintest taste of the crispness of autumn. Every year, that day stood on the cusp of an unknown change. It wasn't the perfect juxtaposition of light and dark that would arrive a scant two weeks later on the equinox, but rather a teasing glimpse of what was to come. The sultriness of the summer's heat would wind around the lone pockets of the sharp chill of autumn air. The two temperatures were incongruent, but with my enhanced senses, in that indigo surrounding, I could palpably feel them merging and succumbing to one another.

In those years I never spoke, nor even dwelled on my annual hour of peace. There were no decisions to be made, nor any precognition of the fortune the universe would soon grant me. Our arrival in Forks was no different from any of our other numerous relocations, nor was that September day in 2003, when I ran headlong into a flowered meadow alcoved among the trees. The flourishes of color and light had been remarkable even to my eyes, and when I stepped into field, for the first moment since I'd become immortal, a sense of contentment had washed over me. In that meadow under that crystalline sky, I found a respite from my weariness.

Three years later, at twilight on a nearly sultry-for-Forks June evening, that blue was gliding toward me. I was only reticently aware of my sisters wearing dresses that precise shade, or the bouquets the color of Cullen eyes. The accents of blues and gold were ignored, forcefully shoved to the recesses of my mind for later viewing.

All I saw was that the hope of those September skies had morphed into a seraphic vision in white.

She glided toward me as my promise of eternal salvation

She glowed in an effervescent portrayal of the end of my existence, and the beginning of my life.

This incandescent being was the embodiment of my soul.

And in twenty-seven more steps she was to be my wife.

On every third beat of the bridal march I composed for her, she processed closer to me. With every half rest pause she left her old world farther behind.

Left foot forward; three seconds closer to my brothers giving me the ring to place on her left hand. Two feet together pause; goodbye to Renee's theatrical bawling in the third row. Right foot forward; the sooner Carlisle declares us man and wife. Two feet together pause; a moment of farewell to Charlie escorting her down the aisle. Step, pause, repeat. The piano played on, and she came closer and farther away in every moment.

Thirty-five heartbeats later, she stood but a foot away. If I extended my arm by half its length she would be in my arms. My still body twitched with the control it required for me to prevent myself from bridging the gap. A supportive grasp of my shoulder from Jasper was all that kept me from stealing her last moment as Charlie Swan's daughter.

Two sets of wet Swan eyes met, and silently said their goodbyes. Charlie's mind was entirely caught in the moment, and nearly silent. His only thought was of the woman, not his little girl, standing before him. He lifted Esme's veil from Bella's face, tucking it behind her head. The muscles of his hands contracted around hers, giving her a squeeze of support before he finally placed her into my now trembling hands.

Not an ounce of sadness reflected in her face. She looked at me jubilantly. Her sweaty hot hand clasped my own, and was as still as the stone I was supposed to be. Neither her heart nor breathing raced. She wanted, mind and body, to become my wife today.

And with that the world stilled, the voices dimmed, the ever looming venom dried, and only she and I remained. We stood, before friends and family, preparing to be bound by the most honest man of God I would ever know.

The music faded away, as Carlisle began to officiate the ceremony. It never occurred to either Bella or me to ask anyone else to marry us. Here was a man whose very long life personified the virtues we aspired to, and those which we wanted to bless our nuptials. He was the proof that the man could rule the beast within us; that we could live a life of compassion and love. As he spoke the words of uniting us under the eyes of God, my eyes figuratively glistened, and I felt my absolution.

Here we stood in this circle of family, and without empathy or access to their minds, I felt forgiven. Carlisle had created, Esme nurtured, my siblings supported, and Bella saved me.

At that moment I'm not sure the smile on my face could ever stretch wider.

"As the father of the groom, I cannot help but wax on a bit before continuing with the ceremony. Edward came to me years ago, as a gravely ill child, and for the first time I knew what it meant to have someone need me, and for that pull to restructure my whole world. I had never been more thankful to be what I was than in the moment I could save that newly orphaned child. I came to love him as my own son, whom I have never been more proud of than on this day. Edward and I have watched this motley crew of a family expand, and now finally, it is his turn to help us grow. While my son gains a wife, I gain a daughter, and I couldn't be more honored than to have Bella complete us. From her first entrance into our lives, she became the beating heart of our family, and breathed into us new life as she transformed my son into the joyful man you see here today. She made him whole, and for that I will forever be in her debt."

Carlisle then broke protocol, put a hand on each of our shoulders, and kissed the top of both of our heads. In a faint whisper, for only vampires and Bella to hear he spoke.

"Godspeed you, both of my children. May your lives be blessed with as much happiness and love as you have brought into mine."

A tear escaped Bella, as she stood on her toes and placed a kiss on his cheek, in the same fashion as she had done to Charlie. She had the love of both her fathers on this day. I followed suit, and embraced Carlisle; he was my creator and mentor, best friend and father, and the man I aspired to be. As short as the moment was, it bespoke everything I desired to say to him. We had never needed words, and as I released him I saw the recognition of my gratitude in the nod of his head.

Clearing his throat, he readdressed the crowd.

"Now that you've indulged a sentimental father, I shall return to my honored duties to see these two wed."

"Edward and Bella have prepared their own vows, so Edward, if you would like to recite them now..."

I took a deep and unnecessary breath, preparing to give myself to this breathtaking woman holding my hand. Sensing my anxiety at professing the inexplicable, her thumb glided over the top of my hand in comfort, effectively loosening my tongue.

"There were times in both our lives, which we existed in hopeless half-lives. Days when we were unknowingly searching for one another, for that one person to embody our souls, and shield them deep inside. I have found that with you, my precious Isabella. You possess me, body, mind and soul and I vow, from today until I cease to exist, that I belong to you. Everything that I ever have been, am, or ever will be is yours."

I released her hand, and opened the carved box that had just been placed in front of us. Resting next to our conjoined coins, were our wedding rings, another sign of our completed circle. I removed the delicate band, engraved only with, "Always," and placed it on the tip of her fourth finger of her left hand.

"With this ring, Isabella Marie Swan, I ask you to let me spend every moment of forever laughing with you, cherishing you always, loving you eternally, and protecting you with every fiber of my being. Bella will you please be my wife?"

The tears continued to fall down her porcelain face, dripping on the antique lace. Her head began to nod her ascent before she could form the words.

"My love, I'm not sure a nod is legally binding..."

Her laughter bubbled out, and with it her agreement.

"I do...I will...whatever I need to say to be your wife."

Our family and friends laughed along beside her, as I lightly pushed the ring down her finger. Unable to resist, I brought her new be-ringed hand to my mouth, and sealed my vow with a kiss upon it.

She then switched our hands as to be holding mine in her own, and reached into her side of the box for my ring. When she looked down to pick it up, the telltale signs of her nerves kicked in. Her cheeks reddened, her breathing became shallow, and her heart raced. I tipped her chin up, bringing her gaze back to mine, and listened as the signs of her anxiety slowly slipped away.

"From the moment I met you, the whole world ceased to exist. All I saw, all I thought, and all I loved was you. You are my end and my beginning, and all my hopes come true. If you'll have me, I want to spend the rest of time with you as my husband. I love you, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen. Please say you'll be mine."

Throughout her vows, we had inched closer and closer together. By her last word, I felt her breath against my face, and her warmth swelled around me. She was around me and inside me, and with my response her lips would be against mine.

"For every ever, and all of always, Bella."

The ring seared my skin, as it settled into its final resting place. I felt the imprint of its engraving against the underside of my finger, spelling out the exact echo of my vow.

Somewhere in the vague recesses of my mind I heard Carlisle redundantly pronounce us man and wife. By the time he granted me permission to kiss the bride, our left hands were clasped, ring to ring, and our lips had met.

We kissed feverishly, her petal soft mouth demanding more while I drew her bottom lip into my own. I licked it, drawing the faintest of mewls from her. I had tasted her blood, the sweetest elixir I had ever known, but it paled in comparison to the flavor of my wife's kiss.

It was love, and it was Bella.

She was mine, and I was hers.

And we were married.

I would have stood there, enveloped in her kiss until the heavens fell. I was oblivious to the 'ahems' and "Wrap it, Romeo," being projected into my mind. I failed to notice Jasper's attempts to cool our ardor, or Carlisle clearing his throat. It was only at Bella's soft moan and my own body's intrinsic response, that I became aware that we were not alone. Begrudgingly I released her lips, my groan of disappointment was met promptly by Bella's as well.

She looked dazed and somehow still effulgent, despite her now crooked veil and smeared lip gloss. The diamond heart was now hanging eschew from its silk ribbon the same shade as our sisters' dresses. If anything she looked more perfect rumpled than when she was walking down the aisle.

Perhaps because now, before God, the law, and even Renee, she was mine.

"My my, if being Mrs. Cullen doesn't look resplendent on you."

She stepped even closer, if that were possible, and in the sultriest voice I had ever heard from her, she whispered,

"It certainly feels good on you, husband."

Tonight could hardly come soon enough....

* * *

Eventually we prosessed down the candle lit aisle, to the cheers and hugs of those around us. The few guests we had invited, essentially the exact same guest list as the engagement party days before, were shown to the tent of excessive culinary delights. Meanwhile Bella and I were subjected to enough photos to blind a vampire. By the time the last photo had been taken, Bella was stumbling and possibly about to have an epileptic fit from all the flashbulbs.

Fortunately it gave me an excuse to hold her closer.

Although, it was not as if either of us had attempted to let go of one another. Through every handshake and hug, we clung together. When Charlie came to congratulate his daughter with a hug, he got half my arm. Renee's face was shoved into my shoulder, when she melodramatically threw herself at Bella, weeping hysterically. Emmett merely picked us both up and squeezed, having no qualms about either personal space or group hugs. Bella wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the squeeze, and I endured by holding her. Jasper fortunately sent he and Alice's well wishes through his strange emotional care packages, infusing us both with familial love.

Rose stood off to the side, with a strangely content look upon her face. She caught my stare and thought to me, "This is right, Edward. I'm happy for you." I nodded my appreciation in her direction. We would always have a tempestuous relationship, but there were few people in this world who would fight harder for me than my sister.

"Esme."

Bella's voice broke slightly, as she addressed our mother, patiently waiting her turn. I turned the little part of my attention that wasn't focused solely on my wife, to the two of them. They stood looking at one another with identical radiant smiles. Since the morning of our engagement party, when Esme comforted Bella, the two had grown remarkably close. The second Renee had announced herself, Esme stepped in front of Bella, and prepared to guard her from whatever onslaught was thrown at her.

It surprised even Alice to realize, it would only be spectacularly atrocious taste. Renee, who had been the bane of my wedding planning existence, had come in peace, and desired to 'help.' She had simpered over Bella, while simultaneously attempting to negate her decisions. She'd thought it strange Carlisle possessed a minister's license and suggested her best friend, a Wiccan priestess, to officiate in his place. She deemed Bella's hand-sewn Edwardian style wedding dress, designed by Alice herself, to be too old to be retro, and provided a sari for her to wear instead. By the time she had suggested the bouquets to be miniature flowering cacti, and replacing the candles with patchouli incense, Bella's eyes had grown larger than Emmett's head.

Charlie's mysterious blackmail had worked so very well, that we had been graced with not only Renee's presence, but her opinions that had threatened to ruin the vision Bella and I had of our happy day.

Our gloriously magnficent happy day...

That was only possible because Esme took over the executive decision making. In a stroke of genius, she had regulated Renee to the non-existent rehearsal dinner plans, assigned Rose to chaperon her, and kept her almost completely distant from Bella. Apparently, much to Bella's eternal relief.

We walked towards Esme, and embraced her together. I often forgot how physically petite she is, but sheltered between Bella and I, she disappeared entirely. It was a strange juxtaposition, for she was the pillar of strength in our family. Carlisle may have made us, but Esme kept us together.

"Thank you, for saving our wedding, and keeping my crazy mother at bay."

A laugh stuck in her throat, unable to be released fully behind the emotional lump in her throat.

"Oh child, I've been waiting for this one to find someone for nearly seventy years. A tsunami would not have stopped this wedding from occurring. Besides, did you really think I'd feed you to the wolves? No one messes with my family."

I rubbed Esme's shoulder, trying to calm the nearly imperceptible sobs of happiness that she was desperately trying to hide. The three of us stood in a circle, all connected, with our backs to the others, cocooned in the ever soothing arms of Esme. She intrinsically desired to mother us, but had always been respectful of our ages, autonomy, and the mothers we had left behind. Instead of coddling us, she would make do with small soothing touches. Today was no different. She was bursting with need to smother us with her love and joy of completing her family, yet she resisted, not wanting to make the day about her. It was the exact opposite of what Renee had done, and Esme deserved the recognition.

"Do you realize how blessed Bella is to now have you as a mother?"

Esme gathered us closer, practically radiating joy as she spoke.

"When I lost my son so very many years ago, I never thought I could recover, nonetheless prosper. I may have died along beside him, yet somehow through that death I found the children of my heart, if not my womb. We are the lucky few, who are fortunate to have our ends become our beginnings. Edward before you loved Bella, I know you kindly thought me naive to see this life as anything but cursed. But watching you two today was the culmination of what I give thanks for. We give up so much to be what we are, and yet even without creating new life or having beating hearts, we can create love in many forms. And while you two gave one another your own, you also filled this family with it. Therefore it is me who is blessed to have both of you."

Bella lowered her head to rest on Esme's shoulder and tucked it up underneath her chin. I repeated the action on her left . Surreptitiously, Alice sent the photographer to catch the tender moment. I knew a copy of the photo would sit proudly on our mantle, while its twin awaited us here with the rest of our family. A keepsake and a reminder of home.

We lingered with Esme for a moment longer, before her inner hostess rules of decorum retook her, and she shooed us off to mingle with our guests. Unfortunately we went straight from the loving arms of one mother, into the exuberantly annoying clutches of another.

"Now Bella, I know you were announced as Mrs. Cullen, but I assume that was a technicality? You're going to keep your own name at least? At this age, your independence is everything. No one is going to want to invite you to parties in college if they think you're a boring old married woman."

I outwardly groaned, not even attempting to muffle it. While I had not been around her consistently through the last two days, the result was the same. The countdown to never seeing her again, roughly ninety-three minutes and forty-seven seconds from now, could not end soon enough. But the rings were on our fingers, the the legal documents had been signed, and Renee was now merely a technicality as an emotional attachment of Bella's.

Though judging by her eye roll, this good-bye was rapidly weighing less and less on her.

"Mom, I have never in my entire life wanted to be invited to, or to attend parties, and I would certainly not let such a reason prevent me from taking my husband's name..."

Before Bella could even finish warming up to the rant that had been building since our trip to Jacksonville, Charlie strolled over to join us. I had the distinct feeling I was finally to learn whatever foul means he had used to convince her to come. Charlie's mind was as quietly smug as it had been since she had first arrived. If I ate the disgusting kernels of rubber air , I would sink into a chair with Bella, eat popcorn and enjoy the show. Instead I shared a look of glee with Bella as we awaited the fireworks.

"I don't recall you balking at taking someone else's name, Renee Higginbotham Swan Dwyer."

Renee stuttered, caught for a moment in his excellent point.

"That's hardly the same thing Charlie, I'm a grown woman."

He lowered his head and chuckled, sufficiently appearing entirely disinterested with the whole matter.

"I don't recall your mother thinking that way though. I seem to remember her throwing a fit that you would demean yourself through marriage, and swore no daughter of hers would ever be subservient to a man. Now correct me if I'm misremembering, as it was quite some time ago, but wasn't it you who them demanded we get married the next day, and signed her name Renee Swan?"

Bella and I stared agape at the scene, neither of us ever being privy to such delicious gossip. Renee had banished the memory from her mind, while Charlie had hidden it buried away, only to be used in the most dire of situations. He had proven with Jake he wasn't afraid to be manipulative, but this was a brilliant attack. He had struck her in the deepest pit of her worst fear.

Any attempt at being indignant failed with her shaking voice and the whites of her eyes enlarging every second.

"And...what are you trying to say?"

"Just that it sounds like you've turned into your mother."

Silently to himself he added,

"And that you were the one to throw away the birth control."

Jasper was the only one alerted to my abrupt change of mood. I vacillated so rapidly from amused and impressed, to so irrevocably irate that I barely heard Jasper question me.

"I can't say I expected decapitating rage to be projected on your wedding day. We already knew Renee was a hypocrite, so what isn't be shared with the class?"

In a quick-fire vampire whisper, I answered him.

"It had always been her decision; for all her insinuations that Bella's birth had ruined her life, she deliberately got pregnant, as some cross between a misguided rebellion towards her own mother, and the absurd thought that 'it could be fun'. The exact thing she accused Bella of doing."

Unfortunately, fate had decided my good fortune cup had runneth over already, and chose to insert anarchy into the day. Bella, who had neglected to inform me she'd been training herself to hear vampire pitch, comprehended my entire conversation. Realization dawned across her formerly mirthful face at the same moment, Renee began quite literally squawking in a sound eerily reminiscent of a pet cockatiel Emmett had once dared me to eat.

"The Battle of Sabine Pass didn't even have temperaments rising this high. You want me to cool you all down, or let the mayhem fall where it will?"

I shook my head, entirely bewildered as to how to act. I was torn between permanently shutting Renee's mouth, and trying to calm Bella before all the blood rushing to her head caused her to faint. I could hear it rushing through her veins, brightening her cheeks and thrumming a death march against her temples. Its beat pulsating the sound of her fury. As ever, Bella's needs won, and I turned my back to Renee to shield Bella, and lead her away.

Naturally, it was the wrong decision, and Bella stormed past me without a word, hooked her arm through Renee's and forcibly dragged her into the trees. She turned only to shoot me a pointed glance, that even only having been married for seventy-seven minutes, I knew meant, "stay."

Which I did. I remained resolutely in place, joined by brothers as we shamelessly eavesdropped.

Renee's face, arguably paler than Bella's at this point, reflected the same turmoil rattling around her head. Flashes of visions of her own mother, trapped in a loveless and miserable marriage, bound to a man with rigid ideas about women and the household, danced through her mind. Day in and out she'd been subjected to the lectures of her bitter and haggard mother, demanding Renee stick to the straight and narrow path of her own success. I saw a brief glimpse of a far younger Charlie, with a bashful smile and eyes only for her. He was her ticket away from her mother, and her first step in a long life of never once stopping to consider her actions, as she had so resolutely been warned to do. It came to a halting crash as it showed her running away with the first man she fell in love with, and being disowned by her mother. The phrase, "You are dead to me," was repeated as a desparate mantra.

It was little wonder she was pale. She had rounded the bend so thoroughly away from her mother, that she had circled back to where she'd started. Whether it be channeling the spirits or cursing men to the pits of hell, both mothers had driven their children away with their extremes.

"Renee...Mom...It's my life, my marriage, and our decision what we do with it. I will always be happy that you didn't miss my wedding, but you've done little to allow it to be my own. I have no idea what just happened, but it is very clear calling you your mother was some grave insult. To be honest, I don't even want to know about your relationship with my grandmother, because it's my wedding day dammit, and so far it's the one day in my life not about you."

Bella's voice raised to such a pitch on her last sentence, that Charlie heard it and glanced over at her. His formerly subtly pleased stance tensed, as the first hint of unease swept through him for creating a scene. I could hardly pay him attention though, for I was far too riveted by this show of strength from Bella. She had paused and tried to calm herself, and not let the anger overcome her before she continued forth.

"I love you, and when I wasn't scared they were going to turn the electricity off because you forgot to pay the bills, we had a lot of fun when I was a kid. But I'm a grown-up now, I'm wearing the sparkling ring to prove it, and you have to let go. I have and will always be your daughter, but I do not remember ever being your child, so please stop treating me like one. I don't want to remember you this way."

To my eternal surprise, Renee's flighty mind, full of fleeting thoughts, cleared with a solitary focus. She would never make the same mistake her mother had; she would never throw away her daughter. Bella's offhanded remark eluding to remembering Renee, triggered a gut reaction to keep her.

All squawking ceased, and she threw her arms around Bella, nearly suffocating her with her intensity. She neared hyperventilation, panting into the lace covered shoulders as she pleaded.

"I'm sorry, baby, I'm so, so sorry. I don't want to be my mother. I'm sorry, baby, please forgive me."

Bella's anger evaporated in her mother's grasp, even as she soothed her yet again. It was the last of a hundred,and could have been the first of a thousand more identical moments that Bella comforted Renee.

Yet it was the last, and the most honest embrace the two would ever share. With every murmur of "I forgive you," Bella said her good-byes. Each "Ssshh, it will all be okay," was "I'll always love you, Mom." The single tear welling in her eye signified she could finally let her go.

Alice recognized the minute jerk of my chin, and approached the pair behind Renee. Bella mouthed her appreciation and released her mother, pausing only to kiss her cheek.

"Thank you Mom, you'll never know how important this was to me. It would have never been the same without you."

Renee sniffled, wiping the tears and mucous with the back of her hand, then brushing it on to her outlandishly bright purple dress. Alice didn't so much as blink, and only handed her a kerchief that seemingly appeared from nowhere. Renee took it with a watery chuckle.

"Bella, don't sound so final. Just because you're going off to school doesn't mean this is the last time I'll see you! You can come to Florida for Thanksgiving, I won't even cook the tofurkey."

"Yeah, that would be nice."

Hearing Bella's distraught tone, Alice shepherded Renee away.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up. I already had to pop into the powder room to touch up my make-up after that ceremony. I swear there wasn't a dry eye in the house after their vows."

The second Renee was out of the picture, Bella was in my arms. I abhorred watching her face her demons on her own, but I could hardly begrudge her the need for her own closure. I should have asked her if she was alright, or offered her my own kerchief. Instinct however, would always trump etiquette, and as her mouth opened to greet me, my own met it with a kiss.

It was tender, and mostly chaste. It was a husband's desire to heal her hurt, and a wife's pleasure at his effort. Her head was cradled in my hands, while my lips gently tried to take every hint of unease from her. She responded, willingly letting me take it from her. Eventually her body relaxed, her breath seeped into my mouth, and lips slowly closed.

"Mmm, I'm ready to go now. Take me to wherever your top secret location is and let's make out all night."

I light growl emitted from my chest at the prospect of my devious plans coming to fruition fifty-seven minutes sooner.

"Food now. The rest five minutes after you set your fork down."

She pouted, suspecting I would cave to her freshly swollen lip.

"Three minutes afterward then. Eat up, I promise you'll need your strength..."

* * *

Somehow, it was still fifty-two minutes later before I pulled the Aston Martin into the marina.

Emmett, recognizing the same gleam in my eye he'd worn in his own for the first fifteen years of his married life, hurried things along for us. We'd been rushed under the tents, and through a flurry of speeches filled with generic platitudes for a couple starting their life. These were merely done for the sake of tradition and our guests, since everyone who mattered had already given their earnest love and support. Bella ate in record time, shoveling the rare delicacies down her throat without bothering to taste them.

Her sterling fork had clattered against her plate when she stood, thanked our guests and began the long processional of farewells. After all of the drama of earlier, they were anti-climatic at best. Our family hugged us, declaring they would miss us, but the knowledge that we would be in regular contact, and that they planned to visit in a few months time erased the urgency. Renee suspected she would see us soon enough, and while it was patently untrue, it was kinder to let her think so. Even I hugged her, grateful she had given Bella what she needed. Charlie awkwardly pounded me on the back as his welcome to the family. He had nothing left to say that he hadn't already throughout the week, so he sufficed with silently bear-hugging Bella. They both somehow knew it was the last one they would share.

She had then taken my hand, and walking backwards to the car, she waved a final time, yelling over the cheers;

"I'll miss you all."

The car door was open, the dark leather seats awaiting, and she had slid inside with remarkable grace. Before I had made the move to close the door, she pulled the handle herself, and effectively sealed her old life shut.

Now I stood before the same door, opening it to her new one.

I picked her up out of the seat, my hands cradling her thighs and back close, and carried her down the dock.

"Edward I'm not all that picky about my clothes, but swimming to our destination in our wedding gear, no matter how sexy you are when wet, does not seem like the most romantic idea."

" I have no intention of getting wet. I do desire to start our honeymoon though."

She looked at me curiously, confused by my insinuation of activities we had already agreed against.

"We only decided to not consummate our marriage before you were changed. You never specified I couldn't give you a romantic honeymoon before that time."

Her brows were furrowed, trying to ascertain what one does during that time period if not make love. While she tried to piece the puzzle together, I continued to walk down the dock, before stopping at a forty foot Dufour sailboat.

"Enough thinking, Mrs. Cullen, I want permission to board your boat."

Bella's eyes widened, though thankfully so did her smile.

"Only with you, would that not be a euphemism."

I leapt on board without causing it to move in the slightest. The kiss I shared with Bella however, caused more than a few ripples inside us. My mouth but centimeters from hers, refuted her claim.

"You need to learn to listen. We have quite a few days and long nights sailing to our destination. At no point did I say anything about them being chaste."

Her smell ripened and her blood thickened with her pleasure at this idea. Of course being Bella she had to know more. I exaggeratedly sighed, and led us into the cabin below, where I had deposited our belongings earlier in the week.

"If you must know, there are certain preparations we have to make to your body before you can be changed. I would've preferred to just lavish you with my acute attention, but since you are nothing if not nosy..."

Amazingly she failed to blush, considering the subject matter, but rather she enthusiastically interrupted me.

"Rose already took care of it last week."

At my immediate growl, she elaborated.

"She said her second biggest regret at being a vampire was the excess body hair she couldn't get rid of, so she took me to get waxed and have my split ends snipped."

"Bella I was referring to your virginity, not your leg hair."

"I thought we had agreed though... I want you to be able to enjoy it, thoroughly."

I laid her on the bed, covering her with my body, pressing every soft and hard inch of us together.

"Mmm, and I will, after you are changed. But if we want to be able to make love then, a certain something must go before it becomes impossible for it to yield."

Recognition dawned, and rather than being enamored of the idea, she smacked my shoulder.

"That's what you were talking about with Jasper? Your alleged intellectual debate, was about hymens through history?"

I could already tell I would never have any secrets with this woman. Nor any private brotherly conversations.

"If you must know, yes, it was. Now consider us even, because you've thoroughly managed to thwart my seduction plans. I had desired to sweep you off your feet, and worship your body atop a trainquil sea and under a starry night. Every inch of your body would have known the touch of your husband."

Her fingers struggled with the buttons of my shirt pressed between us, and her lips were traveling up my neck. Between each nibble she spoke.

"What's yours is mine now, remember? As your wife, I really must insist on doing the same to you..."

* * *

CHAPTER NOTES:

And there you have it, our couple is wedded, the crazy bitch is still crazy, but at least we know why and she made nice, and they're on their way to a pseudo-bedding. Since he never actually said, "I need to get to third base and pop your cherry" I'll spell it out. No they are not having intercourse, that will wait until she is changed, and he won't be quite as scared of breaking her. However, did you really think I'd take away ALL their fun times on their wedding night? I think not. :)

and in case you're wondering, this is not in fact the end just yet. :)

So tell me what you thought, ladies. This chapter about kicked my ass and I'd love to hear from you all.

**Also, Public Fanfic Service Anouncement:**

**VOTING IS NOW OPEN FOR THE BELLIES**

**www[.]thecatt[.]net**

if you're so inclined, Atlas is nominated for "AU You Wish was Canon" and "Best T-Rated Fic." :)


	16. Love

**A/N: A huge thank you to ALL of you who nominated and voted for Atlas in the Bellies! It was quite the honor andI love you all for it!**

**_Also a big apology for the lack of review responses, they've been down on fanfic, so please know I've received them, I love them, and I love you guys!_**

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Meyer, not to me. le sigh. ;)**

**On with the second to last chapter of Atlas!**

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"For someone who claims to hate wet things, you seem rather determined to stay that way."

Bella swam closer, drifting over the swells lapping against the boat. I floated on my back, legions above the predators lurking below us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We'd been slowly sailing for two weeks, and were nearly to our final destination.

A destination Bella was still unaware of, though not for lack of trying.

My lazy grin reappeared for perhaps the umpteenth time since boarding what Bella had dubbed, "Our little sea monster, Nessie." Considering the beauty of the polished wood paneling, brass fixtures, and magnificently white sails, not to mention the absurd amount of money I spent on it, I was perhaps less than enthused at her naming abilities.

Though that was the only thing I'd found to be grumpy about. Rarely had the lookof some variation of unabashed pleasure left my face in the past few weeks. I had long days of sailing and swimming; the entire ocean was at my command and no one was around for miles forcing me to hide myself.

A fact that Bella had used to insure that there was rarely much of me left unhidden...

Fortunately there had been very little of Bella left to the imagination. My particular pale wife had decided that she would use this opportunity to get a tan for the last (first) time in her life. It had then become my bi-hourly duty to slather her bikini clad body from head to toe in sunscreen, and I took my job very seriously. It was magnificent to see her so free and comfortable in herself, as she lounged about on deck, soaking in the sun and blatantly ogling me while I single-handedly sailed the boat.

We were currently anchored for one of our many swim breaks that Bella insisted upon when she got hot. It had become routine for me to monitor her body heat and at that precise degree, I would lower the sails and throw the anchor, scoop her up and jump in the water.

"If you recall, I said I don't like cold wet things, and at the moment, neither of us are cold, though I am arguably quite wet..."

I groaned at her unintentional double entendre. Naive Bella who wanted to experience what she'd never felt before had been dangerous. Bella who had spent the last two weeks letting me learn and love her body, and yet still stuck to her guns about waiting until she was changed, was nearly fatal. Every thought in my head was beguiled with and consumed by her.

A new expression had manifested itself on Bella's face, one that I had only begun to see after our wedding night. It was equal parts confidence and satisfaction, with a side helping of smugness. The arch of her eyebrow as she swam into my waiting arms truly didn't bode well for me.

"I see you're being insatiable again. What's it going to be this time? 'Oh Bella, perhaps I should check one more time that you're fully prepared for the change...' 'This is no joking matter, your body has to be absolutely ready....'"

I sank backwards into a float, pulling her on top of me and rested my hands on her rear.

"It's not nice to tease your husband, . Just because I didn't find anything the first few dozen times doesn't mean I won't later. I'm dedicated to being thorough."

She sat up, straddling me like a surfboard and blatantly squirmed over my more delicate areas, effectively escalating my groans to outright moans. Bella of course, was giggling as she looked to be hoola-hooping on my privates in the vast abyss of the Atlantic.

Sex, or the tame high school-esque vampire-human variation of it, was nothing if not funny looking.

And utterly arousing...until your wife riles you to the point of growling and then just _stops_ moving.

Power, apparently goes straight to Bella's head, because she looked immutably pleased with herself.

"You're not thorough; you're a horny teenager on his honeymoon. It's a shame we're in the ocean though, or we could indulge in our adolescent urges. But with all the thrashing and splashing, we'd probably look like tasty seals in distress to every shark in a five mile radius."

My hands, deciding to become autonomous, slid around the curve of her hip and rocked her slowly forward. My hips, also deciding to act on their own accord, jutted upwards, effectively splashing water all over us. But judging by the glazed look in Bella's eyes, they also hit their intended destination.

"Believe me when I say, the only thing that's going to get a taste of you is me..."

* * *

"So did you mean that in a sexy way or were you being literal?"

Bella's question interrupted my nearly drunken haze. After experiencing pleasure with her I felt like a big satiated cat; full, content, and lazy. Hell I even purred after our first round of experimentation on the boat. Now, laying in the sunshine letting the droplets of seawater slowly dry, with a wet, but albeit warm wife curled into my side, I was an utterly blissed out vampire.

And I had no idea what Bella was talking about. Speech seemed like far too much of an effort, despite the fact that it was physically impossible for me to be tired, so I raised my eyebrow and hoped she caught it.

The poking at my side at the continued silence clued me in to the fact that she hadn't.

Damn.

"If you don't qualify that I'm going to blanket choose sexy. It seems fitting enough."

A wet kiss against my chest was followed by what was supposed to be a sharp poke to my belly button.

"You're fortunate that your arrogance is endearing or more so that it's justified. Anyway, I was referring to that bit in the water...about the sharks and the, uh, tasting?"

I chuckled at the sudden addition of more warmth on my side in the precise location of her cheek. She may be quite confident in experiencing our more adult relationship, but putting it to words would most likely always embarrass her.

"By now I would hope you're aware that I wouldn't let a shark eat you, you're rather important to me after all..."

It never failed to amuse me to frustrate her, especially to the point that she'd make these adorable kitten growls as she was doing now.

"I know you'd save me, I think we've resoundingly proved that true time and time and time again. It's more along the lines on if the airplane was going to crash. I know you could grab me and jump to safety, but what about a shark? If the wolves can hurt you, could a shark? Could you fight one off?"

I'd been wondering if and when she would finally get curious about the fine print details of being a vampire.

"The literal answer is yes, probably with a hand or foot tied behind my back, arguably even two feet and one hand down..."

"It's getting less and less attractive..."

I swung her around and on top of me, slipping my sunglasses on her to dull the glare from my obscenely bright body, and held her tightly.

"You are quite the little fibber, you love it and you know it. However, to answer your question, it would be entirely unnecessary, lesser predators don't seek out those who can make prey of them, nor do they encroach on their territory. None of the sharks would've come anywhere near us because to them, I'm at the top of the food chain, and I'd already captured you. So while I said it to seduce you, it was in fact true. No one else would or will ever get a taste of you besides me."

She nestled her head into the crook of my shoulder, her forehead scrunching up in almost tangible thought.

"I guess I'm wondering about the whole invincibility thing, so only the wolves and other vampires can kill us?"

I nodded, basking in the thought of all her breakable parts fusing into unbreakable strength. No more paper cuts, drowning, broken legs and hands...no more rogue vampires or middle of the night fevers. Nothing would ever physically hurt her again.

Except me, when I condemn her to the pits of fiery hell for three days...

I'd been banishing the thought for days, refusing to dwell on that necessary detail and last barrier to our happiness. Yet as we drifted closer to our destination, the time was running out. Still, as much as she jokingly scolded me for arrogance, she'd be far more legitimately angered if I began to dwell on her as yet to be experienced pain. Instead I would retreat back to our early days and try and keep it light.

"Are there other wolves out there, besides the Quileutes?I mean what if we run into some and they found out you changed me? Or do they just hate us on principle? Do they attack first and ask questions later?"

She was rapidly working herself into a frenzy; her respirations shortened after each scenario and before long she'd be having a panic attack. My hands instantly began to roam up and down her back, making soothing noises while I did.

"First of all, there are other more traditional werewolves that are more along the lines of Teen Wolf than even Jake. While I'm not sure, I'm inclined to believe the Quileutes are one of a kind; more shifters than werewolves. We have a treaty with them and special dispensation for you, and the Volturri handle the others. They're not a threat to us, so shhh, there's nothing to worry about."

I was apparently less than comforting, because she rapidly shot upright.

"The Volturri! How the hell did I forget about the Volturri?"

I sat up with her, and wrapped her back into my arms.

"Bella what is this about? I thought you wanted to know more about being a vampire?"

Her head fell forward resting on my chest while she fiddled with the drawstring to my bathing suit. Classic Bella avoidance techniques.

"It's just you don't seem so invincible anymore. The wolves tore apart the newborns, Victoria nearly pulled your arm off...you can be hurt, and I finally got you all to myself. And now I'm about to be changed and I'm thinking, 'What if something happens to him? What if something takes him and not me?' Because I know you, and if we were in danger you'd let yourself be killed and then I'd be stuck alive without you for eternity."

Her voice deepened and became more gravelly as her breath hitched. She wasn't crying but she was on the cusp of it. I clung to her, trying to let her come as close to crawling inside me as she physically could.

"I...I can't live... without you Edward. You're my husband! I can't be a wife without you!"

If I had ever suspected that the possibility of being a shark snack would finally break the seal on the tumultuous emotions she hadn't had time to deal with over the past month, I might possibly have forgone seducing her. Maybe.

"You need to listen to me. I can't make promises about the future years down the road, but I can swear on our marriage that I will never go anywhere you can't follow. If something happens, it's both of us or neither. I'd personally prefer neither because I'm going to need at least a millennium before I even think about doing anything that doesn't involve you being close enough to touch."

Hiccups erupted against my shoulder as she tried to calm herself.

"In the meantime, we're as safe as we can possibly be. We've managed to become strong allies with the wolves, to the point that I know Sam and Carlisle are discussing revising the treaty. As for the Volturri, they've been informed of our wedding, and Aro has agreed to take Carlisle's word on it once I verify that you've been changed."

"Really?"

I dropped a kiss on her head when she finally returned my embrace.

"Have I ever lied to you about your safety?"

A quick bark of incredulous laughter emitted from her.

"Don't answer that. The relevant point being that I wouldn't now, and I shouldn't have done it then. I won't ever keep things from you again Bella, I promise."

Her little head popped up centimeters from my own with a devilish smile on her face.

"Does that mean you'll tell me where we're sailing to?"

I tickled her bare ribs causing her to erupt into giggles.

"Everything except that."

* * *

By some intuited agreement, we postponed any further discussion of her change. Instead we continued on as we had, lazily meandering our way to our final location. Nearly a week later, due to some excessive time spent at anchor, I navigated Nessie into a protected cove.

"Oh are we going to play on the beach?"

Bella came on deck snacking on grapes, effectively distracting me. I pulled them out of her grasp, picked her up, and plopped on our topside hammock. I plucked a grape and brought it to her mouth, rubbing it along her plump lips until she opened up and pulled it in with her tongue. I grabbed another one, balanced its disgusting waxy texture between my own lips, and leaned forward to offer it to her. Once again, her small tongue darted out and wrapped itself around the grape, but not before her entire mouth descended upon my own. The fruit disappeared and I was left with her sweet and tarty lips, which I infinitely preferred. Our mouths moved together in the same rhythm she chewed her treat. I may not enjoy the taste, but I cherished the simple act of feeding her, and being a part of the last of her human experiences.

"You weren't exaggerating when you said vampires are easily distracted, were you?"

I blinked stupidly at her.

"Was I supposed to be paying attention to anything other than you?"

Her hands began combing through my hair. It was a habit she picked up since helping me recover from the fight with Victoria. It had been balm to my shattered well-being, and had become an ongoing comfort since then. I could feel every individual hair follicle moving under her faint touch, and it sent an electric tingle throughout my whole body. If this was the way she elected to make me concentrate, she'd chosen a poor method.

"No I'm quite fine being the sole object of your focus, but I wouldn't mind knowing what we're doing here. Unless of course you're of the mind to 'set anchor'...."

She went so far as to make hand quotation marks around 'set anchor,' exaggerating what had become our euphemism for hours of marital playtime.

"I fear I've corrupted you in ways I had never expected. It's not my vampirism I needed to worry about, but my body. And you call me the insatiable one? I'll have you know that we're here; it's the big secretive end of the journey."

I stood up and tossed her onto my back, stepped onto the edge of the boat, and jumped into the water. We surfaced, and she sputtered water into my hair as I began a breast stroke fast enough to make Olympic champions gape. Within moments we were standing on the crystalline beaches that backed up to a rather dense maritime forest.

I could feel Bella's body swiveling as she looked around, but I refused to release her when she tried to slide down.

"You really took the going wild together while I'm a newborn to heart, didn't you? So are we going to be all _Blue Lagoon_ for the next year?"

It was the opening I'd been waiting for, and without a word, I took off down the beach to the far side of the island.

Half a minute and a few miles later, I came to a stop in front of a rather elaborate beach cottage. If it perhaps had more square feet than your average single family home, well vampires liked to have a lot of space. It blended seamlessly with the landscape of the island and I could only hope it fulfilled Bella's sunshine quota, even if it was far more humid than dry.

A gasp and quiet laugh resounded from my back, and this time I did release her to the ground, though only to swing her under my arm next to me.

"This is far more in keeping with a Cullen scheme. Do I even want to know if you bought this island? Because if you did, I kind of love it...wait, it is deserted isn't it? No one's going to be able to get a look at our naked sparkly butts, right?"

My mind piqued at the prospect of 'naked sparkly butts' and at least a half of my brain capacity downward spiraled into that thought process. Fortunately enough was left over I could still answer her.

"The island is all ours...for now. The deed however belongs to Carlisle. He bought it for Esme decades ago, and being ever so original, he named it "Isle Esme." It's on loan to us for as long we want it. However Emmett kindly renamed it for us as the "Island of the Sparkling Love Vamps," so I'll leave it to your own discretion to decide what you'd like to call it."

She stood up on her tiptoes to tenderly kiss me.

"Home works for me."

I scooped her up again and cradled her close. I was addicted to holding her and I could only pray that she allowed me to continue after she was changed. There was never a moment I didn't want as much of her touching as much of me as possible. It wasn't necessarily sexual, but rather a need for the thrumming electricity that hummed through and warmed my body where we're connected. After nearly a century of barely being touched, even I could forgive myself for being a glutton for her. Her legs and arms were wrapped around my waist and arms, and while it may not have been the most traditional journey over the threshold, it was far more intimate.

"I'm proud of you."

A subtle change in my facial expression alerted her to my confusion.

"For a lot of things, but you only bought a sailboat, and for you, I think that shows a little restraint. So thank you."

Once again, my complete lack of a mask with her gave away my guilt, and a knowing smirk spread across her face.

"I knew it. What else is there?"

I turned towards the eastern wall of windows and pointed to a nearby island nearly double the size of the one we were on now.

"I just bought us a kitchen..."

She only blanched for a moment before straightening her features.

"So our er, food supply is over there? "

I nodded.

"Vampires have to eat too, and you're going to be ravenous for a while. The hunting is better on the mainland, and eventually we'll migrate there for our trips, but until you get situated we've got our own private buffet, so to speak."

"I'm kind of a failure on all of this vampire preparation, I haven't asked any questions or really thought about it outside of insane thirst, immortality, and incredible strength. I guess I've been too bogged down in just making sure we get a future, that outside of making the decision to join you, I haven't put too much thought into what the future will actually be. So thank you, for handling the details."

I sunk down onto one of the many down couches and kept her close. It seemed we were finally going to have this discussion.

"Considering that I'm the reason you're being changed in the first place, I think it's only right that I take the responsibility for it. Now while I'm sure you have questions, I need to tell you that there is no rush. We're married, we're safe, we have time. If you want to have a longer honeymoon without the blood lust, then we can take as long as you want. On my last hunting trip, Emmett, Jasper and I came down here and brought all our clothes and supplies, therefore we're fully equipped for you to remain human as long as you desire."

She shook her head rapidly, not surprisingly disagreeing with me.

"That wasn't part of the deal."

My finger poked her soft belly. I would miss that. I6t would be taut and toned soon.

"I thought the deal was we were done with deals?"

"You argue more than a damn lawyer..."

"I got bored in the sixties while Jasper and Alice were living in Woodstock, so I did a stint at Columbia Law. There are only so many times you can hear about 'the man' destroying society before you feel compelled to argue that 'the man' is all that holds it together. Although when you start debating the Volturri as fascists things do get interesting."

Instead of rolling her eyes, she appeared legitimately interested, and that only made me adore her more. It was liberating to offhandedly mention my past, the history I've seen, the nature of my kind, and have my wife open and willing to listen. It's a strange thing to realize that you've not only found, but perhaps even like some parts of yourself, all through the love of someone else. We might never see each other clearly, but we'd finally learned to accept that the other had faults and were fallible, and instead of pushing us away, it brought us closer.

For the first time in a hundred years, I loved my life. And it was all because of the precious woman who was currently interrupting my musings.

"I think since I'm not going to college anytime soon, you should be my teacher. You can spend the next year teaching me vampire history, political theory, and biology. And I want to hear more about your life, what you've seen and done. There are still so many things I don't know about you, and I need to know everything."

I smiled at my wife who had somehow come to be able to read my mind simply by loving me.

"We'll see if we can fit it into our rigorous schedule..."

She sat back on my thighs, looking around the room, taking in the comfortable beach decor and avoided my eyes.

"About that...I know I said I didn't care if our first time together was sweet and romantic, but um..."

My mind raced with the implications of where she was going. I could most likely handle truly making love to her. We'd been very careful about our positioning to keep my strength in check, which at this point was our biggest hindrance. I'd still be terrified, but if that's what she wanted, and I could hardly lie, I wasn't entirely against the idea myself, then we would find a way.

"Will it actually be possible for us to be together for a while after I'm changed? Will I really be that consumed by thirst that I won't even notice you?"

Only Bella would be scared about how her being changed would affect our relationship, and not about the agonizing pain the process would put her through.

"The first thing you'll be aware of is the thirst, you'll know that I'm here and seeing that there hasn't been any trauma that could cause you to lose your memories, you'll know it's me. You will be a bit crazed, but we'll just have to keep you well fed for a while. But yes, it's more than possible, and honestly more than likely it will be your second thought. Everything is heightened, from our strength to our emotions, and as a newborn you'll have difficulty controlling it. So if you feel even a quarter of the way I feel about you towards me, I'm most likely going to be ravished in the forest."

There may or may not have been utter glee in my voice as I finished the statement.

"I'm not going to dignify the latter with a response, besides to say be prepared for grass stains. Though I am curious, if you've been holding out on me, was Mr. Former-Prude-Edward Cullen's second thought about sex?"

I choked at that utterly horrifying thought.

"No. No. No. No. I was hunting with _Carlisle._Damn Bella, way to completely disturb a man's psyche."

She evilly giggled and had a far off look on her face, and I vaguely recalled her referring to Carlisle's movie star good looks. The thought begot a growl from the depths of my diaphragm, which only made her laugh more.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, he's my father too now, and I've only eyes for one Cullen. So what makes you think I'll have sex on the brain?"

"Because I know you, and you've had sex on the brain for years. Not to mention you're being changed as a mated vampire, which is a rather different. There's also the fact that this is your choice, and you won't be entirely disoriented waking up as a creature you formerly thought was a nightmare. When Emmett was turned, he ate half a forest, and then turned his attention to Rose. We didn't see them for a month, and when they turned up again, Emmett was carrying her, and neither had stitch of clothing to their names. Honestly I'm still nauseous merely remembering it."

Fortunately Bella seemed to share my revulsion, as her face looked rather green as well.

"So much for no traumatic events before the change...Despite that, I think it's time. I'm ready, I want to be with you; the rest is just the fine print."

There was no hesitation, nor even a hint of fear in her voice. She'd set her course, and she intended to stay on it. My natural inclination to double and triple check her decision disappeared with her confidence. To do so would be to doubt her, and that was something I would never do again. She deserved for me to respect her decision.

I gathered her in close, absorbing the feel of her humanity. The softness of her skin and the warmth it exuded; the depths of her respirations, the rhythm of her heartbeat were implanted in my memory. My nose dug into the crook of her neck, her breastbone, her hair, her wrists; inhaling and absorbing it into my own. It personified our relationship. It was unlike anything I ever had or would ever know. It called and sang to me, dancing in my mind, my body, and my heart. It invoked the vampire inside me and soothed the man. It made me burn and yearn, tested my control to its limits, and then pushed at me some more. Her smell and her blood burned me in its fire and remade me as her husband.

Soon it would run through my veins just as my venom would go through hers. It, even more than our ultimate consummation, would make our union permanent. Each of us would wear the other's rings on our hand, have their life force inside us, and shortly thereafter we would join our bodies. It was with that thought, the last of my deepest buried fears and anxieties slipped away. Nothing done with such blinding love and devotion could strip someone of their soul. I would always hate anything causing her pain, but I would suffer through it beside her, and we'd both emerge through the agony stronger. Together, we could survive the worst hell had to offer.

I kissed her heart, the pulse in her neck, and finally her lips one last time. She stayed still, giving me full access to her body as she always had. Pulling back, her eyes locked with mine and held the question that she didn't dare ask.

"I'm ready too, honest and truly. At this point you've essentially turned the vampire into a cuddly kitten, I could sooner mess this up than ...well there's nothing that compares to you, so I lack any real analogy. I know you believe in me, and so I do too. The only question now is if you want to eat or sleep first..."

She shook her head.

"Then choose your deathbed, my love."

If perhaps my voice shook at my attempt at levity, she let it pass. My wife didn't ask me to be perfect for her, just as long as I was honest. We hadn't explored the house yet, but I hoped for my sake she didn't choose the room that would hold our marriage bed. When I finally made love to Bella I didn't want to remember her agonizing screams that she emitted on those blankets while she changed.

As ever though, she surprised me. She rose from my lap and began unbuttoning her still damp shorts, pulling off her t-shirt, and didn't stop removing her clothes until she stood naked before me. She then crawled into my lap and repeated my earlier process. A warm wet kissed was pressed to my heart, my pulse, and a long, lingering, love-filled one to my lips.

"It could only ever be here in your arms. I'll be gone from you for a while, but I want to feel you the whole time, and I know you need to be able to feel me. And I need to say it, so please don't dismiss it. Thank you, Edward. Thank you for giving me life."

Through her death, we would both live, and with that mindset, we might be able to get through the next few days.

"I promised you, through every ever and all of always. I'll be waiting for you."

I cradled her close and buried my head in the crook of her neck. I breathed her in one last time, and pressed my mouth against the vein. For the first time in ages I let the venom flow, it gathered in my throat and flooded my mouth. When I kissed the spot that would make her mine, the chilly liquid spilled onto her skin, causing her to shiver.

The time had come.

I sunk my teeth into her flesh, and let her blood flow.

Through her gasping cries, her feverish mantra remained the same.

"Love you....love you....love you..."

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

"**Island of the Sparkling Love Vamps" is stolen from the title of a Christopher Moore book, "Island of the Sequined Love Nun."**

**And so my lovely wonderful readers, it's almost over. We've one more chapter/epilogue (I'll decide which when I write it) to go. **

**I hope you all enjoyed a little glimpse into the honeymoon and had all your questions answered as to what their future will entail. I'd love to hear from you as to what you thought about sexy sailing Edward or how he dealt with changing her.**

**If you're interested though, I wrote a prologue for a new story, Masque of the Red Death. It will be continued after Atlas is completed, and is something all together different. It's vamp AU, and I'm trying my hand at horror. You heard me, horror. It's on my profile, or if you're reading on Twilighted, I'm still waiting on it to be validated, so head over to my account by the same name!**

**oh. PS. I got a twitter: Jeesiechreesie. I routinely get pleased with a little bit I've written and post it on there, so come follow me! (God that sounds so cultish...)  
**


	17. Listening

**A/N: And so ends the first piece of fiction I've ever written.**

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* * *

  
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~*~

* * *

My time on earth had been elongated in a frozen youthful effigy.

Mother shielded me from World War I, yet I was dead before the war's end. My heart stilled but I lived on, through the nation's Depression and my own. Mirrors depicted my own variation of the Red Scare as my crimson eyes bespoke of recent death. One war became many, presidential scandals followed one after another, social changes and cultural revolutions all blurred together. I saw it all through a haze of disinterest. None of them ever touched me; they merely brushed by with the faintest hint of awareness before slipping into the recent past.

I remained static through time, letting it pass me while I remained untouched and unmoving. I had found it long and daunting, never ceasing and yet no one period of it ever lasted longer than the other.

In truth, despite witnessing a century of it passing, I had never truly grasped time. I'd spent it entirely on pause, or in my time with Bella, nearly at a rapid fire fast forward with no moment being long enough.

As with everything in my life, that had changed with her.

She had been lying in my arms for millenniums. With each tick of a millisecond I felt the world shifting. The beach outside our door eroded, the sun ceaselessly rose and fell, and the circle of life repeated. Whole lives were lived and lost and for the first time I lived it too. I lived them while she could not.

Tempus rerum imperator.

Time, commander of all things.

It had thrown me into its realm of waiting, forcing me to orbit around my dying-to-live-again wife. My whole being remained on alert for every facet of change in the world around us. When she arose I would be able to tell her how many birds fell from their trees, how many crabs scurried along the shore or how many were lost in the process

Life and death were all caught and commanded by time.

Except for Bella and her now silent heart.

My skin registered a distinct pressure and gave way to its force, pushing me back against the couch. There was an indentation of the palm of a small hand in my shoulder blade, and the finger pads of the other around my neck. Strength resonated from their clutches. If they tightened further they could dig through my skin or shatter my bones; they could tear me apart and I would let them.

For who I was lived inside those hands.

Dead, alive, or waiting in limbo, those hands held my whole world. It would decide my fate that hung so precariously on edge. They would judge my actions and determine whether I would continue to traverse through the hell of these past few days or be granted into paradise.

In this moment, Bella commanded time, and as I promised her, I would wait forever for her decision. My arms that had not budged for days remained around her now firm flesh, and my head rested in the crook of her shoulder. She had complete access to my neck, and if for whatever reason she somehow hadn't come back to me, I prayed she would strike quick and true.

As she did in mine, I too would die in her arms.

It was the way of our kind when we were at our most feral. Everything was a matter of dominance, and I knew that as the older vampire, I should help her find her control. Jasper would have dominated her; growled at her with his teeth to her neck until she became cognizant of her surroundings. It was after all, the way to tame newborns. It was not however, what you did to your wife.

My neck remained exposed to her, tilted at the same angle as hers when I had bitten her; when I had literally taken her inside of me. Slowly, not at all in the erratic fashion of the newly awakened, she moved. The hand on my shoulder slid down my chest, the fingers at my neck dove into my hair, and the teeth identical to my own grazed my neck.

Whether she loved me or loathed me, I was, and forever would be hers. So it was when I left her, when I returned, and in the clearing in the woods. I was hers to do with whatever she desired.

Her teeth came to rest in the precise location, to the exact millimeter, of her own bite. Venom dripped onto the spot as temperate breath blew against me in reverse deja vu. Lips then followed, pushing down against the skin and I felt it depress for the first time. Closed plump lips, even softer than before despite their new hardness, kissed my neck.

A desperate sob swelled within my chest; it combined with the terror filled growl I had bottled up, and grew to encompass the sound of pure joy rattling inside me. She'd come back to me. I crushed her to me, no longer wary of hurting her. At every point our skin was connected and I could _feel _her.

Perhaps to some it was a hug, but they would be wrong. It was the mortar of the pyramids and the nectar of the gods; it was all of time and a grain of sand inside the hourglass. No one who had never felt such resplendent happiness nor dwelt in the place inside oneself where the deepest of fears reside, could ever comprehend the feel of us pressed against each other.

At some point in our desperate embrace the sun rose again.

I felt the heat of it against my eyelids that I had yet to have opened. It was a reminder that the world was still with us, and that I had duties and responsibilities. I had years to wallow in the relief that this woman in my arms was still herself, and that her nature had won out against the beast crawling at her throat. I had gone confidently into the change. I had known that I wanted her to be one with me as much as she desired it herself, but I had no abject certainty. No guarantee existed that she would know me, love me, and be mine when she awoke. If there was one thing, although there were thousands, that Bella had taught me it was the human emotion of uncertainty. Decades of reading minds and living with a psychic had took away the surprises in life, and I had ignored something for far too long:

We weren't omniscient beings. We may have gifts or curses that rise above the commonalities of man, but even at our most powerful we still lurked within the realm of uncertainty. Nothing in this world was foolproof.

Except for one.

My standard of faith and baseline of knowledge was rooted in one true fact:

My wife.

Ever so slowly I distanced our bodies until I could finally see her. Our eyes matched now, as they were both filled with her blood. Simultaneously our hands reached for the other's face, stroking around our eyes. They spoke of sacrifice and love, and I would proudly share her burden of looking a monster. Strangely enough I felt comfort that mine were red as well, even though I'd yet to see them to confirm it.

The rest of her wasn't better than it had been. Yes, it was enhanced; she was sleek and curvy, toned and taut, pale and vibrant all at once. But it would never be superior or less than what she was before.

She had been and always would be perfect.

"_No."_

I assumed I must have spoken aloud, because far faster than she ever had before, her head was whipping back and forth in an adamant protestation.

"_Not perfect. Never perfect. Take it back. We can't do that again_."

At our subsonic level I made calming noises, trying to ease her with the closest noise a vampire makes to emanate soothing. Meanwhile I was shocked at her denial. She'd undergone the worst throes of hell to be with me and she thought I would think of her as anything other than a goddess?

A savage growl tore through her body and some paradigm inside me shifted. She was a vampire, truly and thoroughly, and this was no longer a cuddly emotional reunion. She was no longer merely my wife.

She was my mate.

And if she kept growling, considering the affect it had on me, we were both about to be rapidly out of control. I had told her she'd turned my vampire nature into a kitten that purred only for her. But now it recognized its kind; it's _equal,_ and the growl that ripped through me was more primal and possessive than anything I'd ever experienced. It was stronger than the kill or even the richest human blood pouring down my throat. It was elemental.

I needed her _now_.

Our mouths crashed together, the sound echoing around the sparsely decorated room. This was not the comforting embrace of a lover; it was the savage joining of two creatures at their basest level. There was no finesse to the melding of our teeth, tongues, and lips. Instinct had overridden everything but a primitive need to connect. In the vague recesses of my mind that was still functioning, I could only repeat the mantra of how fortunate I was that no matter what was running through her veins, my perfect goddess would always choose me.

"_Not a goddess. Just yours. Your wife, your mate, your always_."

A tingling of awareness perched in my mind. She had spoken as clearly as if she'd been yelling in my ear, and yet our lips had never parted. Her tongue was in fact locked heatedly around my own, and both our growls were reverberating against our chests. And yet still she spoke.

I pulled back and tried to clear the lust that was raging uncontrollably through me. While I wanted nothing more than to fall into it headfirst, there was still something uncomfortable over the thought of us tearing at each other in growling mess on a sofa our mother-figure had picked out. Or that Bella had died on...

For all of my legendary control it was a singularly difficult action to make myself stop kissing her. It was also one I failed. Instead I slowly dampened the ungodly heat of the kiss, fighting both her refusal to do so and my own. Willpower might have been lacking, but eventually enough of the haze diminished that I could attempt to investigate further.

"_Are you inside my head, Bella_?"

Her lips tried to rebuild the frenzy we'd been lost inside, and with her strength and my inability to resist; things rapidly began to get out of hand again. But I was aware this time, and while it felt as if I were straddling the line between man and animal, I tried to focus on if I could hear her.

"_Stop thinking, if you think, I have to think, and I can't. Something inside of me is screaming for you. It's_ _taken over the scratch in my throat and the 4,529,659 things messing with my senses. I need you. Now_."

The thin line I'd been trying to walk along fell away. She needed me, and neither the man nor the animal could or would ever deny her. I stood and raced us out of the house, away from the few signs of our civilization and all things breakable. Twenty seconds later I was as naked as she was, and we'd collapsed on the sand.

There was nothing left of my control. My body was screaming the same thing as hers. It was why I hadn't noticed the sound of her thoughts earlier; they far too closely mirrored my own. Neither our lips nor hands had budged from their positions while I transported us, and I highly doubted they, or any other parts of our body would be separated for a long time to come.

_"You have me. Man or vampire, it's all yours, it all needs you, it all loves you_."

* * *

~ * ~

* * *

The sun set before our bodies disconnected. It rose again before our bellies were sated enough to calm us.

This was the reason newly mated vampires needed their solitude. The countless houses destroyed by Emmett and Rosalie were not because of their personalities, but rather the sheer magnitude of the bonding. Never once had I expected its strength. When the couples thought of this time period, I'd thought them to be ridiculous for putting such stock in sex and promptly ignored them.

How unimaginably wrong I had been.

"_Would it have been that, shall we say, _intense_, if I'd still been human?"_

We'd been communicating nearly exclusively through this delightfully unexpected connection of our minds. I knew vaguely we should discuss it and try to determine how it came about, and the extent of the power. I hadn't though, I'd been far too busy satiating myself over and over again in my wife and with sustenance.

"_No, you would've been dead_."

Being Bella she giggled at the prospect, but having access to her thoughts made me roll my eyes instead of rebuking her ridiculous response. She was vividly picturing the rather deep tidal pool we'd inadvertently created with our ardor. Instead of imagining the fact that I would've flattened her more thoroughly than the crabs we rolled over, or that the sand burn would've flayed her skin off, she thought how irksome pausing to breathe would've been.

The back of my mind however, processed something far more relevant than her bizarre machinations. It was the first time I'd experienced actual imagery through her mind. I replayed our last twenty-four hours, thankful that my brain could record it even when I was rather unaware myself. We had been communicating, but I had not been reading her mind. I didn't pick up on the errant wanderings of her thought process or the bits and fragments that flow through most people's brains. It was always a very deliberate projection.

"I need you to try something. Let your thoughts wander with no intention of reaching me."

Silence.

The waves crashed against our feet, the wind whistled gently, and the scurry of the marine life was still all abundantly present. Yet there was nothing from the woman laying atop of me, drying out in the sunshine. I let my own focus relax and float from moment to moment before I inquired about the outcome of our experiment.

"Did you hear me or what I was thinking about?"

"Not in the slightest. So what does it mean?"

I shook my head and laughed.

"I have no idea. Best I can gather is that we can project our thoughts at one another. I can't read your mind in the way that I can everyone else's, so you're still particularly unique there."

"My big power is being a half-ass telepath? I can only hear you when you let me. Which I might add, is unbearably lame."

Perhaps I could've prevented the snort that her complaints begot, but it would've taken a stronger man that myself. Her brows were furrowed and her lip was stuck out, and she was exceedingly annoyed. Turnabout was in fact a beautiful thing. I had agonized over what she was thinking since we met, and now thirty seconds into her realization of her diminished powers, she was frustrated.

Apparently I had been projecting that bit, because what was no longer a soft jab poked my midsection. I grabbed her hands and rolled us over, knowing full well that she could switch our positions without the slightest difficulty.

"Now, now, play nice. You apparently have nothing to worry about since I'm rather incompetent at thinking about anything besides you."

As I had expected, she flipped us over again and retook her spot in the crook of my shoulder, settling in as if she were preparing for the sleep that would never come.

"I don't understand why I can do this. I'm not a mind reader, but I can hear you sometimes. You are a mind reader, but you can _only_ hear me sometimes. What happened to whatever it is that kept you out of my head before? Have you always been able to project and just never met someone else who could hear it?"

Her question sparked the beginning of a theory. I couldn't do what she was suggesting; my powers merely allowed me to hear, not interact with someone else's mind. Bella's had always been to keep out all mental intrusions, and yet now we both had the ability to do some semblance of both. We had no way of knowing if this worked on others, but something in my gut told me it wouldn't.

I curled her hair around my fingers, stroking the beautiful mind that was open only to me.

"I think this is ours. I can't prove it, and have nothing to base this off of, but I feel sure that this is part of what it means to be mated."

"But Alice and Jasper don't share powers..."

She momentarily hindered my theory.

"You're right. They share many similarities, as do Emmett and Rose. But though they reflect their personalities back on one another, I know they can't do what we can."

Bella's gave me access to her wandering thoughts while I attempted to comprehend how it was possible. She lingered on the moment I bit her, thus pausing my musings to focus on her. They weren't images filled with pain and agony, though arguably that was very much obvious. Instead she let me experience how it felt to be filled with my venom, to feel me rushing through her system, fusing with her essential systems, and adapting them. My venom became the root of how she still existed, and that alone kept her sanity through the change.

I was stunned.

In her weakest hour, in the midst of the fieriest pits of hell, she thought it worth it just to keep a part of me with her always.

Even stranger was that it exactly echoed the feeling I had with each swallow of her blood. There had been no frenzy of bloodlust or fear of it overpowering me. We were exchanging our essences. She died to live, and through it she gave me her life, as I offered her the ability to live again.

"_It was quite literally a transfusion, completed between a mated pair..."_

She instantly responded, grasping the nature of what had transpired. Even through her thoughts I could feel her wonderment and joy at the prospect.

"_We're literally inside each other; no longer two halves..."_

Conjoined coins from two very different decades flashed before my eyes as I finished her sentence.

"_We're whole, all sides of me are joined with all sides of you."_

Bella stood, pulling me up with her. Her chin fit in the indent of my sternum, her head under my neck. Arms were wrapped snugly around my back while mine were tightly wound around her. We fit, even better than we had originally. Where I had hard spots she was soft; my body curved in where hers curved out; we could have been seamlessly welded together.

We merely held each other.

It wasn't the mindless drive to reconnect to our touchstone as when she'd first awoken. There was no less intensity to it, but where there had been desperation there was now a feel of settled permanence. The mortar had dried and the feast had sated us while we held time in the palm of our hands. No burdens weakened us and the world was in our arms, not weighing down our shoulders.

There we stood in the lush richness of the island as bare as when we were born, clinging to one another. We had no need for temptation in this Eden; no Tree of Knowledge to grant us misbegotten wisdom. We'd overcome our insecurities and all the insidious outside forces trying to tear us apart. Gone were the misguided misconceptions. We knew we were nothing without the other. And if we were hurt more deeply in the process of discovering that, it merely carved out more room to fill with happiness.

Here in this moment was what we were. We weren't omnipotent gods, frail humans, or soulless vampires.

We were husband and wife.

We were a mated pair.

And finally we were one.

* * *

~ Atlas Shrugged ~

* * *

~*~

The William Blake poem, "To See a World in a Grain of Sand," greatly inspired this chapter. I highly recommend you read it.

~*~

A huge thank you to my sister, Michellephants, and KTBass for their help throughout Atlas, either through letting me bounce ideas off them, betaing, or just keeping me going.

To all of you who have read and reviewed, who have joined me on the Atlas thread, and supported a brand new author who had the audacity to rewrite canon her way, thank you. Your support, your camaraderie, your nominations, and votes all for my story have astounded me and given me the confidence to write. You have amazed me and I hope this story has given you all even half the enjoyment it has to me. Now I must bid Atlas Shrugged a bittersweet farewell, though hopefully not to all of you. I have a new story, quite unlike Atlas entitled Masque of the Red Death which will begin updating this week. I hope you all put me on author alert and stick around to say hi now and again.

Now tell me what you thought!


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